Lyondell Chemical Company history

Sinclair built the first facility for refining crude on this site--which went onstream in 1919.

Sinclair Oil & Refining Company was subsequently renamed Sinclair Oil Corporation, and in 1936, with Rio Grande Oil Company and several other Depression-scarred companies, was merged into the Richfield Oil Corporation.

In 1955 Texas Butadiene and Chemical Corporation bought the Lyondell Country Club in Channelview, Texas, and built a plant on that site.

Sinclair Petrochemicals Inc., a subsidiary of Sinclair Oil, which was then a subsidiary of Richfield, purchased the Channelview site in 1962.

They were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1963.

In 1965 Atlantic initiated talks with Richfield.

In 1966 Atlantic Richfield was formed.

With startling candidness Gower in Chemical Week, January 15, 1986, had summarized the key to Lyondell's success, saying, "our assets are run-of-the-mill, mundane.

1987: ARCO spins off ARCO Chemical, selling 20 percent of its shares to the public.

In February 1990 Lyondell made its first acquisitions, of a polyethylene plant and a polypropylene plant from Rexene Products Company.

While Lyondell has become extremely independent, it retains ties to ARCO, which in 1991 owned 49.96% of Lyondell.

In mid-1994, meanwhile, ARCO made the first move in a plan to dispose of its remaining interest in Lyondell.

In May 1995 the company paid $356 million to acquire the Alathon high-density polyethylene business and its plants in Matagorda and Victoria, Texas, from Occidental Chemical Corporation, a subsidiary of Occidental Petroleum Corporation.

Dan Smith, who had been with Lyondell for most of its brief history, was promoted from COO to president and COO. He took over as CEO in December 1996 upon Gower's retirement.

Also in 1997, ARCO followed through with its divestment plan and sold off its remaining stake in Lyondell.

The company then moved beyond these equity investments by gobbling up its former ARCO sister firm, ARCO Chemical, in a July 1998 acquisition valued at $5.6 billion.

During 1999 Lyondell restructured its long-term debt through a $4.2 billion combined equity and debt offering.

Meantime, Lyondell also was proceeding on its own with the building of another plant in The Netherlands, this one to produce butanediol and to begin operations in early 2002.

Start-up of the plant was expected by mid-2003.

He paid full price, putting down $1.1 billion to purchase Basell in a $5 billion leveraged buyout in 2005.

Blavatnik had been stalking Lyondell, buying up the right to purchase 8%. When he decided in July 2007 to use Basell to buy up a controlling stake in the company at $48 a share, a 45% premium to the market price, Blavatnik's associates got nervous.

LyondellBasell has gone from posting losses in 2009 to profits of $3.9 billion on revenues of $44 billion last year. (Gallogly's shares of LyondellBasell are now worth $380 million.)

In 2010 LyondellBasell emerged from bankruptcy court valued at $15 billion.

In 2013 Len Blavatnik spent $575 million purchasing 8.5 million of Apollo's LyondellBasell shares, an unparalleled bet on an investment that had already helped make him one of the richest men in the world, and one that had many scratching their heads at the time.