When Shell tabled a £47 billion bid for fellow oil and gas firm BG Group in April, M&A bankers eager for consolidation in the industry felt as if they had struck oil themselves. Five months later, there is less in the pipeline than they had hoped.

The Shell/BG tie up sparked anticipation of a blowout in M&A in an industry struggling to adapt to the effects of low oil prices. Martin Walker, a fund manager at Invesco Perpetual, told Financial News when the Shell deal was announced that it could be "the starting gun for further consolidation in the sector".