| Oil companies have a knack for picking the bottom in crude prices, and history may be about to repeat itself. Traders and analysts are speculating that Royal Dutch Shell Plc’s takeover of BG Group Plc for $70 billion announced Wednesday may be the first in a wave of acquisitions as Big Oil seeks to drive out costs following the rout in oil.
That happening would resemble the massive deals of the late 1990s that restructured the industry. As oil slid then, BP Plc bought Amoco Corp. for $56 billion in August 1998 and Exxon took over Mobil Corp. for $80 billion in December...............................................Full Article: Source
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