International oil companies must learn to contend with the resurgent power of the state following a decade in which markets were thought to rule, Royal Dutch/Shell, the energy giant, said in a report on Monday outlining challenges ahead. In Global Scenarios to 2025, Shell said the “dual crisis of security and trust” triggered by the September 11 terrorist attacks and the collapse of Enron in 2001, underlined the state's power to “regulate and to coerce, in a role involving both direct intervention to fight terrorism and police the market”.

For three decades Shell has published internal scenarios which it says help shape its worldwide business strategy.