By Emily Gosden, energy editor: 2 JULY 2016 • 2:30PM
On the last Thursday in January, the day Royal Dutch Shell’s £35bn takeover of BG Group got the final seal of approval from BG shareholders, Ben van Beurden was not planning a celebration.
Shell’s chief executive was instead preparing to get on with the detailed work of integrating the two companies: some 200 senior staff from Shell and BG had been assembled in The Hague, ready to spend Friday and the weekend working out what would happen when one of the biggest deals in history finally completed.