After years of strategic pivots, greenwashing controversies, corporate name changes and arguments over what Shell actually wants to be, American motorists have delivered a remarkably simple verdict: when it comes to filling the tank, Shell remains the brand they are most likely to consider — and the one they associate most strongly with quality.
Every now and then Shell plc receives some genuinely good news that does not require a 50-page sustainability report to explain it.
This appears to be one of those occasions.
New YouGov BrandIndex research has ranked Shell No. 1 among US gas-station brands for consumer consideration.
Among Americans who visit gas stations, 25.4% said they would consider Shell the next time they needed to fill up.
That puts Shell comfortably ahead of:
7-Eleven — 22.8%
ExxonMobil — 20.3%
Circle K — 18.4%
Chevron — 17.0%
BP — 15.5%
followed by Wawa, Love’s, Sunoco and Marathon.
The figures were highlighted by CSP Daily News under the headline “Shell leads U.S. gas station rankings as Circle K posts biggest gain.”
And on this occasion the headline is justified.
Shell really does lead.
Read the YouGov 2026 US gas-station rankings
More significant still: Shell also wins on quality
Being considered is one thing.
Being thought good is another.
And this is arguably where Shell’s result becomes more impressive.
YouGov also measured consumers’ perceptions of quality.
Shell recorded a net Quality score of 29.0 — the highest of every brand included in the analysis.
The nearest challengers were:
ExxonMobil — 23.8
Chevron — 23.2
7-Eleven — 19.2
That is quite a gap.
So Shell does not merely have the largest consideration score among US gas-station visitors.
It also has the strongest perceived-quality score.
For a company whose red-and-yellow emblem has been attached to filling stations around the world for generations, that is an extraordinarily valuable piece of brand equity.
The Shell logo has survived almost everything
Consider what has happened behind that familiar sign.
Royal Dutch Petroleum Company and the “Shell” Transport and Trading Company operated through their complicated dual-company structure for almost a century.
They unified in 2005 under Royal Dutch Shell plc.
In January 2022, the company abandoned both “Royal Dutch” and its dual-share structure and became simply Shell plc.
Chief executives came and went.
Strategies changed.
Oil prices boomed and crashed.
Shell expanded into electricity, renewables, hydrogen and EV charging.
Its energy-transition ambitions were repeatedly revised.
The corporate headquarters moved to Britain.
The company has been involved in some of the largest environmental, political, legal and reputational controversies in its history.
And yet in America, motorists still see that yellow scallop against its red background and apparently think:
Shell. Fuel. Quality.
Corporate structures are temporary.
A powerful consumer brand can be remarkably persistent.
But Circle K is coming up fast
There is, however, one important qualification.
Shell may be No. 1, but its score did not increase over the previous year.
It fell.
Among brands with sufficient BrandIndex history for a year-on-year comparison, Shell’s consideration score declined by 0.8 percentage points.
ExxonMobil was also down 0.8 points.
BP fell 0.7.
The biggest winner was Circle K, whose consideration score increased by 1.2 percentage points.
Marathon gained 0.6 points and Love’s gained 0.4.
So the proper interpretation is not:
Shell is racing away from everyone.
It is:
Shell remains the national leader, while some competitors — particularly Circle K — are gaining ground.
That distinction matters.
Shell’s weakness: value
There is another wrinkle.
Ask consumers about quality and Shell wins decisively.
Ask them about value for money, and the picture changes.
YouGov’s net Value scores put:
7-Eleven first — 18.5
Wawa — 15.6
Circle K — 14.8
and then:
Shell — 14.5
That is not disastrous.
Shell still scores positively.
But it suggests a recognisable consumer proposition.
Shell is perceived as good.
It is not necessarily perceived as cheap.
Anyone familiar with premium fuel branding such as Shell V-Power may not find that terribly surprising.
Convenience-store operators also have an advantage on the “value” question because motorists are evaluating more than petrol.
YouGov specifically notes that 7-Eleven, Wawa and Circle K — all major convenience-store businesses — occupy the top three Value positions.
A customer stopping at Wawa or 7-Eleven may be assessing coffee, food, loyalty rewards and convenience alongside the contents of the fuel tank.
Shell’s historic competitive advantage is different.
It is the fuel brand itself.
Regional America tells another story
America is too large and diverse for any national ranking to tell the whole story.
YouGov therefore divided the country regionally.
Shell leads the South, with consideration of 27.9%.
It also leads the Midwest, at 24.8%, narrowly ahead of BP at 23.3%.
But Shell does not win everywhere.
In the West, Chevron leads with 26.4%.
In the Northeast, ExxonMobil leads at 24.2%.
That regional variation is important because petrol retailing is intrinsically local.
Motorists cannot choose a brand that does not have a conveniently located station.
And regional convenience-store chains can develop exceptionally powerful customer loyalty.
Nevertheless, for Shell to emerge as the overall national leader across such a fragmented market is a meaningful result.
And there is another remarkable result across the Atlantic
YouGov published its equivalent UK petrol-station rankings on the same day — 8 September 2026.
The British results are dramatically different.
In Britain, the supermarkets dominate consideration:
Tesco Petrol — 50.3%
Sainsbury’s Petrol — 41.3%
Asda Petrol — 32.2%
Morrison’s Petrol — 29.3%
BP comes fifth at 28.2%.
Shell is sixth at 26.9%.
On price-conscious British forecourts, therefore, Shell is nowhere near No. 1 for consideration.
But then comes the interesting part.
Ask British motorists about quality and Shell is suddenly back on top.
Shell records the highest UK net Quality score at 24.6, ahead of BP at 23.0 and Esso at 17.7.
So the same broad perception appears on opposite sides of the Atlantic:
Shell equals quality.
In America that quality perception accompanies the highest consideration score.
In Britain it has to compete against the formidable value and loyalty proposition of supermarket petrol stations.
Read the YouGov 2026 UK petrol-station rankings
A brand stronger than the corporation behind it?
There is a broader question here.
How many American motorists filling their cars beneath the Shell sign know — or care — about Shell plc’s corporate strategy?
Probably not many.
They are unlikely to be considering:
Shell’s $13.9 billion acquisition of ARC Resources;
its latest LNG investment;
its retreat from selected renewable projects;
its Capital Markets Day return targets;
its executive remuneration;
its upstream production guidance;
or the finer points of Wael Sawan’s “more value with less emissions” strategy.
They see the scallop.
They know the name.
They have accumulated years — perhaps decades — of impressions about the product.
That distinction between the corporate Shell and the consumer Shell brand is important.
Companies can spend billions trying to manufacture brand recognition.
Shell inherited and cultivated one of the most recognisable commercial symbols on Earth.
Its value cannot sensibly be measured merely by adding up the petrol stations carrying it.
Even Shell’s loyalty programme has considerable strength
There is supporting evidence.
Separate YouGov research published in 2025 found that Shell Fuel Rewards had a 17% membership share among US fuel-loyalty programme members, making it one of the strongest fuel-branded loyalty programmes in the survey.
Only broader retail programmes from Costco and Kroger, at 22% each, and Sam’s Club at 19% ranked higher.
Among specifically fuel-branded schemes, Shell Fuel Rewards led the field.
For its members, fuel discounts were overwhelmingly the principal attraction.
That adds another layer to Shell’s US retail position.
The company has not merely retained visual recognition.
It has also managed to attach a functioning loyalty ecosystem to the brand.
Read YouGov’s research on US fuel loyalty programmes
Give Shell credit where it is due
Readers of this website will know that Shell receives plenty of criticism here.
Much of it is based on Shell’s own internal records, court proceedings, regulatory findings and historical documentation.
But independent scrutiny becomes worthless if the conclusion is predetermined.
If Shell deserves criticism, say so.
If the evidence is uncertain, say so.
And when independent research produces a result plainly favourable to Shell, say that too.
This research is favourable.
Shell is currently the most-considered gas-station brand among the US consumers surveyed.
It is also perceived as having the highest quality.
It leads in two major US regions.
And separate British data put Shell at the top for perceived quality there as well.
Those are meaningful brand achievements.
There is no need to manufacture a negative interpretation.
But management should notice Circle K
That does not mean Shell should become complacent.
The year-on-year figures contain a warning.
Shell: down 0.8 points.
Circle K: up 1.2 points.
And Circle K already performs slightly better than Shell on perceived value.
The competitive environment is evolving from one dominated largely by international oil-company brands towards one in which convenience-store networks increasingly compete on food, loyalty programmes, digital services, price and the entire retail experience.
Selling petrol is no longer necessarily enough to win a petrol-station customer.
That may explain why the Shell brand’s greatest comparative advantage remains quality rather than value.
The question for Shell is whether that premium perception will remain powerful enough as convenience retailers continue improving their offer.
Commentary: perhaps the scallop is Shell’s most durable asset
Shell plc owns oilfields, gasfields, LNG plants, refineries, chemical facilities, pipelines, trading businesses, charging networks and interests in power generation.
Assets are bought.
Assets are sold.
Entire divisions are reorganised.
Corporate strategies are unveiled and quietly rewritten.
Even the company name has changed.
Yet the Shell scallop survives.
And the 2026 YouGov rankings suggest it continues to do something tremendously valuable.
It reassures a consumer making one of the most routine purchasing decisions imaginable.
Pull off the highway.
See several competing petrol stations.
Recognise the yellow-and-red shell.
Associate it with quality.
Turn in.
That may sound mundane compared with multibillion-dollar upstream acquisitions.
It is not.
Repeating that decision across millions of motorists over decades is how one of the world’s great commercial brands was built.
There is also a small irony here for Shell’s corporate strategists.
At a time when management is increasingly concentrating on LNG, upstream hydrocarbons, trading, capital discipline and shareholder returns, one of Shell’s clearest independent consumer victories comes from the business with which generations of ordinary people have always associated the company:
the petrol station.
After all the talk about becoming an integrated energy company, a power trader, an LNG leader and an energy-transition business, American motorists have offered a wonderfully old-fashioned endorsement.
They still like the Shell sign when they need petrol.
Sometimes a century-old brand does not need reinventing.
What the research does — and does not — establish
The YouGov results measure consumer perceptions and consideration, not actual nationwide fuel sales or market share.
A 25.4% consideration score does not mean Shell operates 25.4% of US petrol stations or sells 25.4% of US motor fuel.
Nor does Shell’s No. 1 Quality score objectively establish that its fuel is technically superior to every competitor’s product.
It records consumer perception.
The distinction is important.
But consumer perception is precisely what a brand exists to influence.
On that measure, Shell has very good reason to be pleased.
Sources
CSP Daily News, 10 September 2026: Shell leads U.S. gas station rankings as Circle K posts biggest gain.
Read the CSP Daily News report
YouGov, 8 September 2026: Fill up favorites: U.S. gas station rankings 2026. Shell ranks first for consideration at 25.4% and first for net Quality at 29.0; Circle K records the largest year-on-year consideration gain. (YouGov)
Read the full YouGov US analysis
YouGov, 8 September 2026: Top of the pumps: UK petrol station brand rankings 2026. Shell ranks sixth for consideration in Britain but first for net Quality at 24.6. (YouGov)
Read the full YouGov UK analysis
YouGov: research into US fuel loyalty programmes found Shell Fuel Rewards among the largest programmes and the leading specifically fuel-branded programme represented in the analysis. (YouGov)
Read the YouGov fuel-loyalty analysis
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