Good Morning: Oil Giant Born

[Okla-homey]

August 5, 1882: A giant is born

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127 years ago today, the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey was established as part of the giant Standard Oil Trust. The trust had been organized earlier in the year, bringing together John D. Rockefeller's oil empire under one central management, run by Rockefeller and an "inner circle."

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The Standard Oil Trust became the first great monopoly in American history, eventually acquiring 90 percent of the world's oil refining capacity before it was ordered to dissolve in 1892. Rockefeller was infamous for his ruthless business tactics, and it was rumored that he often threatened to put local merchants out of business unless they bought Standard Oil.

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John D. Rockefeller

At the breakup of the Standard Oil organization, the bulk of its assets went to the Standard Oil Company (New Jersey), which evolved into Exxon. The rest eventually became the Mobil Corporation. In 1999 Exxon and Mobil were reunited to become the world’s largest publicly held petroleum company.

[badger]

Bill Gates and that Buffett guy might have billions, but their wealth will never compare with the Rockefeller's back in the day.

[Jello Biafra]

August 5, 1882: A giant is born

Rockefeller was infamous for his ruthless business tactics, and it was rumored that he often threatened to put local merchants out of business unless they bought Standard Oil.



might have to bring patrick swayze in, to shut that *** down...

Hint: think roadhouse ;)

[OklahomaTuba]

Ahh, the good ol days. ;)

If what now remains of USSO were combined, (ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips, Chevron, half of BP, Sunoco, and on and on) It would be by far the largest and most profitable firm on the planet. Amazing.

[KC//CRIMSON]

Rockefeller was infamous for his ruthless business tactics, and it was rumored that he often threatened to put local merchants out of business and drink their milkshakes unless they bought Standard Oil.

http://nganoman.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/2007_there_will_be_blood_013.jpg

[Petro-Sooner]

Interesting!

[Jacie]

The Standard Oil Co. family tree is the U.S. petroleum industry.

Standard Oil of NY became the Socony-Vacuum Co. which was renamed Mobil Oil Co.

Mobil merged with Exxon.

Standard Oil of California or Socal merged with Gulf Oil and was renamed Chevron.

Chevron acquired Texaco.

Standard Oil of Indiana became Amoco which merged with BP.

Standard Atlantic merged with Richfield to become ARCO, which merged with BP.

Standard Oil of Ohio or Sohio merged with BP.

The Ohio Oil Co. became Marathon.

Continental Oil Co. became Conoco which merged with Phillips Petroleum Co.

There are more but you get the idea. Despite the efforts of the U.S. Supreme Court to break up the Standard Oil monopoly, the companies for the most part eventually merged back into larger and larger entities.

[Half a Hundred]

FYI - many of you certainly remember when Exxon was Esso. Why'd they have to change it? All the other Standard Oil descendants protested that their competitor got to brand themselves "S.O." and keep it as a trademark, particularly since they all had been going by "S.O." in the years after the divestiture.

Other interesting fact - all of these descendants have at least one gas station branded "Standard" in the states they were originally assigned to, in order to keep the trademark. For example, the one in Texas is a Chevron outside of Fort Worth.