Shell Teams Up with Alliance Group.

Royal Dutch/Shell and Russia’s Alliance Group have formed a marketing alliance in Ukraine that will allow Alliance’s Ukrainian filling stations to use the Shell brand, according to Alliance’s Ukrainian division. Alliance controls include the Kherson oil refinery and a network of 144 filling stations. Vladimir Nesterenko: The initiative looks like an experiment, in which Shell apparently aims at improve knowledge of its brand in Ukraine. Most likely the re-branded stations will continue to sell the same fuel as before, although Shell is likely to toughen quality control. In May, Shell signed an agreement with Naftogaz’s gas extraction division to explore and develop eight oil and gas fields in eastern Ukraine. It looks like Shell is making tentative preparations for a vertically integrated presence in Ukraine’s oil and gas market.