Eagle Oil and Shipping Company
Pearson started to acquire steam tankers to carry the oil that he hoped to produce. Armstrong Whitworth on the River Tyne launched SS San Cristobal (2,041 tons) in 1906 and Swan Hunter, also on Tyneside, launched SS San Antonio (5,251 tons) in 1909. Pearson also bought SS James Brand (3,907 tons), which had been built by Armstrong Whitworth in 1893, and renamed her San Bernardo.
In 1912 Pearson founded the Eagle Oil Transport Company in the UK to take over his ships and carry Mexican Eagle's products[5] and the "Anglo-Mexican Petroleum Company" in the UK to sell Mexican Eagle's products outside Mexico.
Eagle Oil Transport immediately ordered 20 modern steam tankers at a cost of £3 million. Eagle Oil Transport lost a number of ships to enemy action in the First World War. After the First World War, Eagle Oil Transport renewed and expanded its fleet. It bought numerous new tankers, including six of about 13,000 tons each. When Royal Dutch Shell bought Pearson's oil interests, that included Eagle Oil Transport and Anglo-Saxon Petroleum as well as Mexical Eagle Petroleum.
In about 1930 the Eagle Oil Transport Company was renamed the Eagle Oil and Shipping Company. In about 1935 the company started adding a new generation of motor tankers of about 8,000 tons each.[6]
Eagle Oil and Shipping was registered in the United Kingdom. Therefore, after 1938 although the Mexican government had nationalised Mexican Eagle Petroleum, Eagle Oil and Shipping remained a subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell. After 1938 the fleet continued to carry oil from the Gulf of Mexico to the UK. During the Second World War the company played an important role in supplying petroleum and petroleum products to the United Kingdom. Oil tankers were a particular target in Germany's economic warfare against the UK. Enemy action sank 17 Eagle Oil's ships and killed at least 206 officers, men and DEMS gunners serving aboard them.
Among the ships lost was MV San Demetrio (8,073 tons), which was famous for surviving a naval bombardment by the German heavy cruiser Admiral Scheer in 1940 that set the tanker on fire. San Demetrio was repaired and returned to service, but the U-boat U-404 torpedoed and sank her in the western Atlantic off Virginia in 1942 with the loss of 19 lives.
In 1942 the Ministry of War Transport placed a number of Empire ships under Eagle Oil and Shipping's management. One was sunk by enemy action in 1943[7] but after the war the company bought two of the surviving ships from the ministry. The company also bought two T2 tankers that had been built in the USA. The company further renewed its fleet with 16 new ships between 1950 and 1960, and maximum tonnages steadily rose towards the end of the decade. The Royal Dutch Shell parent group absorbed Eagle Oil and Shipping in 1959.
