Eagle Oil and Shipping Company

Eagle Oil and Shipping Company was a United Kingdom merchant shipping company that operated oil tankers between the Gulf of Mexico and the UK. Weetman Pearson, 1st Viscount Cowdray founded it as the Eagle Oil Transport Company in 1912 and sold it to Royal Dutch Shell in 1919. It was renamed Eagle Oil and Shipping Company in about 1930, and remained a separate company within the Royal Dutch Shell group until it was absorbed in 1959.

Sir Weetman Pearson, Bart. (ennobled as Viscount Cowdray in 1910) headed a successful civil engineering contractor, S. Pearson and Sons, that had contracts in Mexico from 1889. He initiated oil prospecting there in 1901 and founded the Mexican Eagle Petroleum Company in 1909, which had its first major oil strike in 1910 (near Tampico on the Gulf of Mexico coast).

Before Pearson struck oil, he started to order oil tankers to carry the oil that he hoped to produce. Armstrong Whitworth on the River Tyne launched San Cristobal (2,041 tons) in 1906 and Swan Hunter, also on Tyneside, launched San Antonio (5,251 tons) in 1909. Pearson also bought 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. He also founded 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. The company gave all the ships the Spanish names of Christian saints, most of them ending in "o". Swan Hunter launched San Dunstano (6,238 tons) and San Eduardo (6,225 tons) in 1912,San Fraterno (11,929 tons)San Silvestre (6,223 tons), San Tirso (6,236 tons) and San Gregorio (12,093 tons) in 1913 and San Lorenzo (12,097 tons) in 1914. Palmers Shipbuilding and Iron Company, also on the Tyne, launched San Hilario (10,157 tons) and San Valerio (6,493 tons) in 1913 and San Melito (12,286 tons) in 1914.William Doxford & Sons launched San Jeronimo (12,398 tons), San Nazario (12,029 tons) and San Zeferino (6,433 tons) in 1914. Armstrong Whitworth launched San Ricardo (6,465 tons) and San Urbano (6,458 tons) in 1913, San Wilfrido (6,458 tons), San Isidoro (9,718 tons) and San Onofre (9,717 tons) in 1914 and San Patricio (12,092 tons) in 1915.

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