Phillips Petroleum International Investment Co history

In 1972 he replaced McCollum, who had retired as company chairman.

With the onset of the 1973 oil crisis, Continental accelerated its search for oil outside the Middle East, and during the next two years made significant discoveries in the North Sea.

In March 1974, Howard W. Blauvelt was named to fill the post of president, which McLean had left vacant when he assumed the chairmanship.

That year, Ralph E. Bailey was named president, replacing Kircher who remained deputy chairman, a post to which he had been appointed in 1975.

In 1977 Phillips's Bravo platform in the Ekofisk field blew out during routine maintenance and spewed oil into the North Sea for eight days.

Blauvelt resigned as chairman and CEO in 1979 and was replaced by Bailey in both positions.

In 1980 Conoco purchased Globe Petroleum Ltd., with 220 retail outlets in the United Kingdom, and entered into a second exploration venture with DuPont.

In 1983 Constantine S. Nicandros was named president of Conoco, which that same year shifted headquarters to Wilmington, Delaware (where DuPont was based). In the following years, Conoco stepped up offshore exploration and production efforts in the Gulf of Mexico and the North Sea.

1984: Aminoil, Inc. is acquired from R.J. Reynolds Industries; company fends off takeover attempt by T. Boone Pickens, Jr.

In January and February 1985, financiers Irwin Jacobs, Ivan Boesky, and Carl Icahn all bought up large blocks of Phillips stock.

In 1987 Bailey retired as chairman and his position was eliminated.

Michael Wallis, Oil Man: The Story of Frank Phillips and the Birth of Phillips Petroleum (New York: Doubleday, 1988).

In 1989, after a two-year lapse, Conoco reopened its oilfields in Alaska.

In 1990 he issued his "nine points for environmental excellence" program as a guide for Conoco's future development in an "earth-friendly" manner.

In 1992 Phillips reorganized its operations into strategic business units, which were given greater autonomy and more profit and loss responsibility.

Meanwhile, also in Asia, Conoco began in 1993 to develop refining and marketing operations as a start toward capturing part of the region's fast-growing petroleum market.

By the fall of 1994, the Ardalin oil complex began producing crude oil out of its field of 110 million barrels of recoverable oil beneath the frozen tundra.

One possible shorter-term aid to company profitability arose in the talks between Conoco and Phillips Petroleum started in late 1995 regarding the combination of the companies' domestic marketing, refinery, and pipeline operations in a 50-50 venture.

Dunham's leadership stint got off to a stellar start when Conoco posted its second best year ever in 1996, earning $860 million on revenues of $20.2 billion.

Conoco emerged as the sixth largest United States oil company based on its 1997 revenues of $21.4 billion.

Commercial production at Britannia began in August 1998.

Surging oil and gas prices in 2000 led Conoco to its best year ever: profits of $1.9 billion on revenues of more than $39 billion.

2001: As part of a significant new growth strategy, Phillips announces that it will acquire Tosco Corporation, a major United States refiner and gasoline retailer, for $7.49 billion.

By late 2002 they raised their savings goal to $1.25 billion, concentrating primarily on the downstream side of the business.

Debt was reduced to $17.8 billion by the end of 2003.

Also in 2006, ConocoPhillips completed the acquisition of a partial interest in the planned 1,663-mile Rockies Express Pipeline (REX) project.