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Maurel & Prom (Shipping company, France)

History of Maurel & Prom
Corporate and house flags of Maurel & Prom
Maurel Frères
Maurel & H. Prom

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History of Maurel & Prom

The Maurel & Prom company was founded in 1813 by two famous families of Bordeaux to ship goods from Bordeaux to the French colonies in West Africa. The shipping company of the same name was founded in 1830. Over the years, the company acquired several trading posts, becoming one of the main shipping companies servicing Senegal, Côte d'Ivoire, Cameroon, Gabon and Congo.
At the end of the 19th century, Joseph Prom founded the Maurel & Prom oil factory, which was fed with groundnut imported from Senegal.

The Maurel & Prom line was closed down in 1970 following the crisis of maritime transport. The company went to food processing (chicken and fish farming). In 1995, Électricité et Eaux de Madagascar purchased 76% of the company and developed mining, forestry and shipping activities. The two companies separated in 1999; Maurel & Prom refocused its business on oil and gas exploration and production, which began in Kouakouala (Congo) in 2000. The company built there a pipeline in 2002 and discovered a new deposit in M'boundi. In the meantime, Maurel & Prom had withdrawn from its non-strategic activities (agriculture, forestry, gold mining).
Maurel & Prom is now listed among the ten biggest mid-sized oil companies in Europe.

Source: Company website

Ivan Sache, 15 January 2005

Corporate and house flags of Maurel & Prom

Coporate flag of Maurel & Prom - Image by Ivan Sache, 15 January 2005

The corporate flag of Maurel & Prom, as shown on the company website, is a white flag with a white rectangle bordered in yellow and charged with a red ampersand (&).

Ivan Sache, 15 January 2005

House flag of Maurel & Prom; left, first version ; right, second version - Images by Ivan Sache, 16 August 2005

Although the company website indicates that they got out of shipping in 1970 they are perhaps indicating the getting out of their principal trade as the company continues to appear in Lloyds as a shipowner until around the mid to late 1980s. Two flag versions are shown for them with the variances being in the red lettering. Stewart 1963 shows them as "M&P" and Brown 1982 [lgr82] "MP" connected by a red dash.

Neale Rosanoski, 4 June 2005

Maurel Frères

House flag of Maurel Frères - Image by Jarig Bakker, 20 December 2004

In the beginning of the 20th century, the main port of commerce of Senegal was not Dakar but Rufisque, where most trading houses of Bordeaux, including Maurel Charles, Maurel Frères and Maurel Louis had their headquarters.

The house flag of Maurel Frères is shown in Brown's Flags and Funnels of British and Foreign Steamship Companies [wed26] as white with a red border and the blue letters "MF".

Jarig Bakker & Ivan Sache, 15 January 2005

Maurel & H. Prom

House flag of Maurel & H. Prom - Image by Jarig Bakker, 20 December 2004

The house flag of Maurel & H. Prom is shown in Brown's Flags and Funnels of British and Foreign Steamship Companies [wed26] as white with a blue border and the red letters "M&HP".

Jarig Bakker, 20 December 2004