Mobil Australia Finance Company Inc history

Exxon Mobil was founded by John D. Rockefeller in 1882 and is headquartered in Irving, TX.“

HistoryMobil Oil Australia, through its predecessor company, Vacuum Oil, opened its first branch in Queen Street, Melbourne in February 1895.

In March 1904, Vacuum Oil was officially incorporated under Victorian Law as a proprietary company.

In 1906 the company issued Australia's first ever chart of "Recommendations to Motorists" covering about 200 makes of car and highlighting the increasing range of lubricating products Vacuum Oil had available.

By 1908, Vacuum was growing rapidly and merged with the Colonial Oil Co, a company marketing kerosene and motor spirit, adding to Vacuum's specialty lubricant products.

By 1911, with public outcry at a climax, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that Standard Oil must be dissolved and split into 34 companies.

In 1916, Vacuum introduced its popular "Plume" (petrol) and "Laurel" (kerosene) brands to the Australian market which would develop the operations significantly.

The growing automotive market inspired the product trademark Mobiloil, registered by Socony in 1920.

In 1924 Vacuum opened its first bulk petroleum products terminal at Pulpit Point in Sydney and took delivery of its first imported bulk oil products cargo, a 1.5 million gallon shipment carried from the United States by the tanker "HT Harper".

In 1933, Jersey Standard and Socony-Vacuum merged their interests in the region into a 50–50 joint venture.

Socony Mobil introduced the Flying Red Horse (Pegasus) logo which first appeared in Australia in 1939 and became one of Australia's best recognised corporate symbols.

In October 1946, Mobil began constructing the Altona Refinery near Melbourne.

The refinery commenced operations in June 1949, initially making lubricating oil and bitumen from imported crude oil.

Mobil Chemical Co. was established in 1950.

The discovery of vast reserves of crude oil and gas in Bass Strait in the early 1960's changed the Australian refining industry dramatically, as most companies changed to processing the locally produced oil instead of importing their raw materials.

At the same time, Mobil announced the construction of a major petrochemical plant near the Altona Refinery that produced its first products for sale in June 1961.

Standard-Vacuum Oil Co., or “Stanvac,” operated in 50 countries, from East Africa to New Zealand, before it was dissolved in 1962.

In 1970 further expansion and modification of the Altona Refinery was completed, making it possible for Bass Strait crude to be processed.

Jersey Standard changed its name to Exxon Corp. in 1972 and established Exxon as a trademark throughout the United States.

Mobil announced its return to producing lubricating oils in Australia in 1973, commencing construction of a lubricating oil refinery alongside the existing Adelaide fuels product refinery.

The lubricating oil refinery opened in 1976.

In 1985, Mobil negotiated a major asset swap with BP in which Mobil vacated the Western Australia retail market in exchange for acquiring a large portion of BP's South Australian, Victorian and New South Wales retail market.

On March 24, 1989, the Exxon Valdez oil tanker struck Bligh Reef in Prince William Sound, Alaska and spilled more than 11 million US gallons (42,000 m3) of crude oil.

The Exxon Valdez oil spill was the second largest in United States history, and in the aftermath of the Exxon Valdez incident, the United States Congress passed the Oil Pollution Act of 1990.

Mobil re-entered the West Australian retail fuel market in December 1995 when it purchased the Amgas service station network and related business.

In 1997 a major modernisation project was completed at the Altona Refinery with Mobil spending $250 million to replace the old Thermofor Catalytic Cracker (TCC) with a modern unit known as a Fluidised Catalytic Cracker (FCC), representing the latest in refinery technology.

In 1998, Exxon and Mobil signed a US$73.7 billion definitive agreement to merge and form a new company called Exxon Mobil Corp., the largest company on the planet.

The global merger of Exxon Corporation and Mobil Oil Corporation on 30 November 1999 heralded the creation of the world's largest publicly traded oil and gas company, Exxon Mobil Corporation.

In 2000, ExxonMobil sold a refinery in Benicia, California and 340 Exxon-branded stations to Valero Energy Corp., as part of an FTC-mandated divestiture of California assets.

In April 2003, ExxonMobil made the decision to discontinue its Adelaide Refinery operations.

In November 2005 further upgrades to the Altona Refinery were completed.

An initial award of $5 billion USD punitive was reduced to $507.5 million by the US Supreme Court in June 2008, and distributions of this award have commenced.

In June 2009, Mobil announced that it would not restart Adelaide Refinery and would proceed to demolish the facilities and remediate the site.

In October 2010, Mobil completed the sale of its retail fuels business to 7-Eleven.

In 2012, ExxonMobil confirmed a deal for production and exploration activities in the Kurdistan region of Iraq.

In November 2013, Exxon agreed to sell its majority stakes in a Hong Kong-based utility and power storage firm, Castle Peak Co Ltd, for a total of $3.4 billion, to CLP Holdings.”