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THE TIMES of London reports that BP and Royal Dutch Shell are talking about merging to create a £250 billion company larger than Exxon. "The City is awash with talk that Britain’s two largest oil companies have engaged financial advisors to discuss terms for a so-called friendly merger that could result in £2.5 billion of cost savings for the enlarged group." Around the clock negotiations are in progress. The combined entity would produce 70% more oil and gas than ExxonMobil. If this is true, it would return the two companies to the relationship they shared prior to 1974 when BP specialized in exploration and production and Shell provided the bulk of the marketing expertise.. Closer to home, there were BP/Shell joint ventures in South Africa, Kenya, Zimbabwe, some of which still exist (Zimbabwe and the Sapref refinery south of Durban). The savings of such a merger in South Africa would be considerable. The two companies already share some depots and joining the two retail operations would give them nearly 30 per event of the liquid fuels market. There would also be considerable savings in the inevitable cuts in existing marketing staff numbers.