Dutch Divorce: How Shell Split With Netherlands After 114 Years

A twenty-minute stroll through The Hague -- the pretty but low-key city that houses The Netherlands’ government -- takes you from the prime minister’s office to the workplace of someone who’s arguably even more powerful: the CEO of Royal Dutch Shell Plc.

But when Ben van Beurden, who’s worked at Shell since he graduated from nearby Delft University in 1983, called Mark Rutte on Sunday afternoon, the conversation was anything but close. He rang to tell the PM that Europe’s biggest oil company was moving its headquarters to London, a step that would simplify its corporate structure and ...