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Texaco history
Texaco company history timeline
1901: The Texas Fuel Company is formed.
On 1 May 1902, the Texas Company was formed from the assets of Texas Fuel assets, and additional capitalization.
In the fall of 1902, salt water leaked into the Spindletop wells and ruined many of the companies based there.
3 November 1903 The Texas Company begins operations at its first refinery - Port Arthur [Texas] Works
1904 The Havemeyer Oil Company - having developed a unique cold-filtration process and blending package for oils - coins, and first uses, the name "HAVOLINE".
1905 Realizing that the Jasper County, Indiana oil field which it originally intended to exploit is effectively depleted, Indian Asphalt Company is persuaded (in "an extensive campaign by the [Georgetown] Board of Trade") to move its offices and plant to Georgetown, Kentucky.
1 May 1906 Growing quickly in both size and scope, Indian Asphalt Company changes its name to INDIAN REFINING COMPANY. Its plant is upgraded to "refinery" status and its product line expanded to include paraffin wax, paint, and "Blue Grass"-brand axle grease, in addition to asphalt.
8 December 1906 "HAVOLINE" is registered as a trademark of The Havemeyer Oil Company for use as a brand name on oils (not strictly motor oil) and greases.
5 January 1907 Havoline Oil Company (a "spin-off" of The Havemeyer Oil Company) is incorporporated under the laws of State of New York.
Texaco met this demand with its first consumer product, Familylite Illuminating Oil, introduced in 1907.
1907 Construction of INDIAN REFINING COMPANY’s Lawrenceville, Illinois refinery is completed and the refinery begins operation.
1908 Although continuing to operate its Georgetown refinery, INDIAN REFINING COMPANY relocates its offices to Cincinnati, Ohio.
1 December 1909 Following a brief illness, J. Mortimer Levering (secretary of INDIAN REFINING COMPANY) passes away.
17 December 1909 The Havemeyer Oil Company is dissolved.
INCLUDING HAVOLINE PRODUCTS BEGINNING IN 1909
The well-known logo first appeared in 1909, as a red star with a green 'T' in the center.
2 September 1910 INDIAN REFINING COMPANY (Maine) is chartered to do business in the State of Louisiana and begins operating a refinery in New Orleans
16 March 1911 Primarily in anticipation of expanding to the west coast, INDIAN REFINING COMPANY OF CALIFORNIA is created (and is incorporated under the laws of the State of New Jersey).
The company’s expertise in searching for oil became increasingly important as a May 1911 Supreme Court decision separated Standard Oil Co. (California) from its parent, a giant New York-based corporation.
By 1911 it had established its first refinery outside Texas, in Illinois.
Fortunately, Standard had the right person for the job in Fred Hillman, who became director of the Producing Department in 1911.
The company went from distributing gasoline in barrels to underground tanks to curbside pumps and, in 1911, it opened its first filling station in Brooklyn, New York.
1 April 1912 INDIAN REFINING COMPANY OF LOUISIANA incorporates under the laws of the State of Louisiana.
Standard Oil Co. (California) scored big in December 1913 when it purchased the Murphy Oil Co. holdings in West Coyote and East Whittier.
1913: Company assets are worth $60 million.
In addition, the opening of the Panama Canal in August 1914 gave the company greater access to Eastern United States and European markets.
1915 INDIAN REFINING COMPANY closes its Georgetown and East St Louis refineries and the company’s overly-ambitious European venture (which has proven to be a severe financial drain) is abandoned.
In this 1915 photo, a horse-drawn wagon loaded up at a Standard Oil Co. (California) station in Sausalito, Calif., for delivery of Red Crown Gasoline and Pearl Oil to customers in the San Francisco Bay area.
In 1915, Texaco moved to new 13 story offices on 1111 Rusk St, Houston, Texas.
In 1916, Standard became the first company in the industry to adopt an eight-hour day for all salaried and contract employees.
By 1917, Standard had added two other great Southern California discoveries in the Montebello and Baldwin No.
Following upon the success of Red Crown automobile gasoline, Standard introduced Red Crown aviation fuel in 1918, promoting the product through advertisements and through wider commitment to the growth of the aviation industry.
In January 1919, the company had the first of several discoveries in Elk Hills in California’s San Joaquin Valley.
And by 1919, Standard’s production had grown to more than one-quarter of the state’s total.
The search began in December 1920, when a 25-person exploratory team sailed from San Francisco to Bondoc Peninsula in the Philippines, followed by a freighter carrying 1,000 tons of equipment.
1920 INDIAN REFINING COMPANY purchases the capital stock of the Central Refining Company, which is located immediately north of the Lawrenceville refinery.
Into the latter 1920’s, for example, "INDIAN" accounts for some 20% of all gasoline sales in Indiana.)
In 1920, two researchers at its Port Arthur refinery developed the oil industry's first continuous thermal cracking process for making gasoline.
RED-WHITE-AND-BLUE "BALL" ON ALL HAVOLINE CONTAINERS AND MOST PACKAGING BEGINNING 1922.
1923 The general offices of INDIAN REFINING COMPANY are moved from New York City to Lawrenceville.
1924 INDIAN REFINING COMPANY sells its remaining producing properties (consisting mainly of wells and leases in Illinois and Ohio) to the Ohio Oil Company (later to become the Marathon Oil Company).
In 1925 alone, the company’s three refineries at Richmond, El Segundo and Bakersfield produced more than 56 million barrels of petroleum products as well as 13.6 million pounds of greases and 340,000 tons of asphalt.
1926 The subsidiary Indian Pipe Line Corporation is sold to the Illinois Pipe Line Company.
In 1926 it acquired the properties of Pacific Oil Company (previously owned by Southern Pacific Railroad) and became the Standard Oil Company of California, or Socal.
By 1926, the fleet grew to 40 vessels, including 22 ocean-going tankers as well as stern-wheelers, launches, barges and tugs.
20 April 1927 The Texas Company incorporates (under the laws of the State of Delaware) as the principal operating subsidiary of The Texas Corporation.
2 March 1928 The Texas Corporation acquires the California Petroleum Corporation, which is reorganized as The Texas Company (California).
In 1928, Texaco became the first United States oil company to sell its gasoline nationwide under one single brand name in all 48 states.
The Texas Corporation's earnings reached an all-time high in 1929, but then dropped precipitously after the stock market crash.
In 1931, Texaco purchased Indian Oil Company, based in Illinois.
The long, intrepid quest would take more than 10 years before the company made its first international discovery in June 1932.
In June 1932, Socal began a year-long series of negotiations with the Saudi government before the two sides signed a concession agreement providing the company with exploration rights for the next 60 years over an area of about 360,000 square miles.
In November 1932, the company assigned the concession to its newly formed subsidiary, California Arabian Standard Oil Co. (Casoc), later to become Arabian American Oil Co., or Aramco.
Texaco Fire Chief Gasoline was launched in 1932, and the company advertised it by sponsoring a nationwide Ed Wynn radio program.
In 1933 Socal signed a concession with the Saudi state, forming the California Arabian Standard Oil Company, or Casoc.
1934 "HAVOLINE WAXFREE" is offered in refinery-sealed cans for the first time, and furfural solvent-extraction is added to the manufacturing process.
3. USE OF ROUND, REFINERY-SEALED 1-QUART AND 5-QUART CANS BEGAN IN 1934.
1935 Production of "HAVOLINE WAXFREE" at Port Arthur Works is begun in order to supplement the output of the Lawrenceville refinery.
The joint-venture partners also agreed to share exploration rights in Central Sumatra, Java and Dutch New Guinea, which had been granted to Socal in 1935.
The company entered the Canadian market in 1935 when Standard Oil Co. of British Columbia was launched in a two-room suite of the Hotel Vancouver.
During the 1930s, Socal expanded its operations in Central America, building upon its leadership position in Mexico. It added a road-surfacing plant and constructed a bulk plant in El Salvador in 1935 before expanding into Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras and Costa Rica.
In 1938, Texaco introduced Sky Chief gasoline, a premium fuel developed from the ground up as a high-octane gasoline rather than just an ethylized regular product.
During the pre-war years, Socal’s aggressive exploration program extended to the Southeastern United States, where the California Company, a Socal subsidiary, made its first discovery at Bayou Barataria, Louisiana, in 1939.
In 1939, Texaco became one of the first oil companies to introduce a "Registered Rest Room" program to ensure that restroom facilities at all Texaco stations nationwide maintained a standard level of cleanliness to the motoring public.
In 1940, Rieber was forced to resign when his connections with German Nazism, and his illegal supply of oil to the fascist forces during the Spanish Civil War were made public by the Herald Tribune through information produced by British Security Coordination.
With the entry of the United States into the war in December 1941, Socal became a key supplier of crude oil and refined products for the Allies in the Pacific.
The Texas Corporation acted as a holding company for The Texas Company of Delaware and The Texas Company of California--formerly The California Petroleum Company--until 1941, when it merged with both and formed a single company known as The Texas Company.
Canadian production began in 1941.
1, using a rig left behind by Caltex Pacific Indonesia when crews vacated the area in 1941.
30 April 1943 The Texas Company creates a second "Indian Refining Company", which it incorporates under the laws of the State of Delaware - a "shell" company which it lists as an inactive subsidiary.
The company furthered its interests in petrochemicals in 1944 when it formed the Jefferson Chemical Company with the American Cyanamid Company.
After the United States government gave Socal special priority to build the nation's first synthetic detergent plant in 1945, the company had a solid footing to produce a wide array of industrial chemicals such as detergents, plastics and synthetic fabrics.
After acquiring the Perth Amboy Refinery in 1945, the company used it as a manufacturing base a couple of years later when it launched an expanded marketing network in 12 Eastern states through its subsidiary, California Oil Co.
1946 "New and Improved HAVOLINE" is introduced.
United States consumption of oil exceeded its production for the first time in 1947, and Texaco reacted by tapping new foreign sources for its crude oil.
And in Saudi Arabia, when drilling resumed in 1947, the company learned that its concession area in the Enala Anticline contained the largest oil pool in the world—105 miles of productive sands.
In 1947, Caltex expanded to include Texaco's European marketing operations.
1950 "Custom-Made HAVOLINE" is introduced.
Reflecting Socal’s growth in these postwar years, revenues surpassed $1 billion for the first time in 1951.
1953 "Advanced Custom-Made HAVOLINE" is introduced.
In 1954, the company added the detergent additive Petrox to its "Sky Chief" gasoline, which was also souped up with higher octane to meet the antiknock needs of new cars with high-compression engines.
1955 "Advanced Custom-Made HAVOLINE Special 10W-30" is introduced.
The protracted legal and financial complications over the Getty acquisition were a drain on Texaco, and it went through more than a decade of reorganization and strategic refocusing before it was finally acquired by Chevron. It came under the control of J. Paul Getty, and the name Getty Oil Company was adopted in 1956.
26 August 1958 INDIAN REFINING COMPANY, INCORPORATED is officially dissolved by the State of Maine.
1 May 1959 The Texas Company becomes Texaco Inc.
The company formally changed its name to Texaco Inc. in 1959.
The name Texaco was officially adopted in 1959.
In 1962 it also acquired mineral rights to two million undeveloped acres in west Texas from the TXL Oil Corporation.
MARKINGS (TO INCLUDE MANUFACTURER) ON HAVOLINE PACKAGING THROUGH 1962
In 1964, Texaco introduced the "Matawan" service station design at a station in Matawan, New Jersey.
At the Richmond Refinery in 1965, the company launched the world’s largest Isomax hydrocracking complex, which converted heavy petroleum oils to light stocks used to make gasoline and other products.
To increase its production in Europe, moreover, Texaco purchased the majority interest in the West German oil company Deutsch Erdol A.G. in 1966.
To manage a share of the divided operations, the company created Chevron Oil Europe in 1967.
To increase its production in the Amazon Basin, the company built a jointly owned trans-Andean pipeline in 1969 and a trans-Ecuadorian pipeline in 1972. It also reorganized the Caltex group in 1967, taking over one-half of the group's interest in 12 European countries that it had been serving from Saudi Arabia.
In 1969, Standard completed a 150,000-barrel-a-day expansion of its refinery at Pernis in the Netherlands, and a year later brought onstream a new 250,000-barrel-a-day refinery at Freeport in the Bahamas.
1969: The trans-Andean pipeline is built.
Standard expanded its fleet in 1970 by adding six new very large crude carriers (VLCCs), supertankers of 250,000 or more tons.
Furthermore, federal price controls and mandatory allocation regulations restricted Texaco's ability to raise prices or withdraw from unprofitable markets. Its net income dropped from $1.6 billion in 1974 to $830.6 million a year later and remained at that level for the rest of the decade.
1975: Revenues begin falling because of the Arab-Israeli War, the OPEC embargo, and the nationalization of foreign oil assets in many overseas nations.
With these discoveries, Socal achieved a production record of more than 3.5 million barrels of oil equivalent in 1976, a year in which the world rebounded from an economic recession.
In 1977, the company made a major organizational change when it formed Chevron United StatesA. Inc., merging six domestic oil and gas operations into one.
Texaco acquired full ownership of this operation in 1980.
Texaco later bought out American Cyanamid's interest in this venture and then merged it with its newly formed Texaco Chemical Company in 1980.
Under the direction of its new chairman, John K. McKinley, Texaco undertook a major restructuring plan in 1980.
1980 For numerous reasons (among them the expense of needed technological upgrades), the prospects for the Lawrenceville refinery’s future profitability have eroded significantly.
The current Texaco star and modern station design launched in 1981.
The company also added a new operating division in 1982, Texaco Middle East/Far East, and made several important acquisitions to bolster its reserve base.
In 1984 Texaco purchased the Getty Oil Company but was sued for contract interference by the Pennzoil Company, whose own imminent acquisition of Getty had been derailed by Texaco’s successful bid.
By late 1985, the merger was complete.
Chevron’s revised environmental policy added an important new mandate: risk management, which involved identifying potential problems and solving them before they became real problems. It also expanded a far-sighted program, Save Money and Reduce Toxics, which had already cut hazardous waste disposal by 60 percent since 1986.
Texaco spent most of 1987 in Chapter 11 while continuing its litigation.
In 1987, Texaco filed for bankruptcy.
He launched the biggest proxy battle in business history when he tried to gain control of five seats on the board of directors, but he was ultimately defeated in a June 1988 shareholders' election.
Since settling with Pennzoil in 1988, Texaco has pursued an almost constant restructuring effort in an attempt to recapture its former profitability and prominence in the oil industry.
However, Icahn continued to buy the company's stock, and in early 1988 he began a takeover bid.
In 1988 Texaco United StatesA. transferred approximately two-thirds of its refining and marketing operations to Star Enterprise, a joint venture established with Saudi Arabia's Aramco.
Texaco Refining and Marketing Inc. "sold" the idle Lawrenceville, Illinois refinery facilities to fellow Texaco Inc. subsidiary Indian Refining Company (Delaware) in 1988.
By 1988, when the company acquired $2.5 billion in properties from Tenneco, Chevron became the leading oil and gas producer in the United States Gulf of Mexico.
In January 1989, Texaco and Saudi Aramco agreed to form a joint venture known as Star Enterprise in which Saudi Aramco would own a 50% share of Texaco's refining and marketing operations in the eastern United States and Gulf Coast.
In August 1989, follow-ing another change in ownership, both the refinery and Indian Refining Company (Delaware) were acquired by "second tier subsidiaries" of a Pennsylvania firm.
By 1993, net income had improved to $1.07 billion, but revenue continued to fall, dropping to $34.07 billion.
Starting in 1993, DeCrane guided Texaco through yet another restructuring intended to improve its competitiveness.
In 1993, Chevron became the first major Western oil company to enter the newly independent Kazakhstan.
In 1994, Texaco's System3 gasolines were replaced by new CleanSystem3 gasoline for improved engine performance.
One positive sign was Texaco's reentry into the Canadian market in 1995, with its $30 million reacquisition of Texaco Canada Petroleum Inc.
In 1996, the firm budgeted $2.1 billion for international development.
In 1996, Texaco paid over $170 million to settle racial discrimination lawsuits filed by black employees at the company.
After forming a corporate Mergers and Acquisitions group in January 1998, Chevron began evaluating other companies that might best complement its own.
In early 1998, Texaco teamed up with Shell Oil Company to create Equilon Enterprises LLC, which combined the refining and marketing units of both companies, as well as their trading, transportation, and lubricants businesses, in the West and Midwest sections of the United States.
In 1999, Chevron initiated a series of talks with Texaco, which proved unsuccessful.
By the second half of 1999, prices became stable and the Asian economy began its turnaround.
In early 1999, the company settled a $3.1 million suit concerning a sex discrimination lawsuit filed by 186 female employees who claimed Texaco did not pay them fairly.
In 1999, the company formed the joint venture Equilon with Shell Oil Company, combining their Western and Midwestern United States refining and marketing.
In October 2000, Chevron Corporation agreed to buy Texaco for $ 36 billion.
16, 2000, the two companies announced that they had reached an agreement to merge.
Bijur wrote in the 2000 Texaco Annual Report, '2000 was a year in which the fundamental changes in our industry became more apparent then ever before.
Bijur announced his departure from Texaco in February 2001.
The merger was completed October 9, 2001.
On November 19, 1985, Pennzoil won a US$10.53 billion verdict against Texaco in the largest civil verdict in US history. It was the largest in United States history until 2001.
In 2001, Texaco and Chevron merged to become ChevronTexaco.
In July 2004, Chevron regained non-exclusive rights to the Texaco brand name in the United States The following year, in August, Texaco introduced the Techron additive into its fuels in the United States and parts of Latin America.
In 2005 the company resumed the Chevron Corporation name and then purchased Unocal, which had significant oil and gas fields in the Gulf of Mexico and Asia.
In 2007, Delek Benelux took over marketing activities for Chevron in Benelux, including 869 filling stations, mostly under the Texaco brand.
Also in the United States Gulf of Mexico, Chevron achieved first oil from the Tahiti Field in May 2009.
The Tengiz expansion and the ramp-up of the deepwater Agbami Field offshore Nigeria were two projects that added significant production volumes in 2009.
In 2010, Chevron ended retail operations in the Mid-Atlantic US, removing its brand from 450 stations in Delaware, Indiana, Kentucky, North Carolina, New Jersey, Maryland, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, Washington, D.C.
Chevron’s development of oil and natural gas from shale and tight rock formations has intensified since the company entered the Marcellus Shale through its acquisition of Atlas Energy in 2011.
In 2015, Chevron’s downstream segment reported its best year on record, with $7.6 billion in earnings.
The Gorgon project achieved key construction milestones – including the design and construction of one of the world’s largest CO² injection facilities – and delivered first gas to a foundation customer in Japan in April 2016.
By 2016, in addition to the Marcellus, the company was developing tight oil or liquids-rich gas shales in the Permian Basin of the southwestern United States, the Vaca Muerta Shale in Argentina, and the Duvernay Shale in Canada.
And the achievement of several commercial milestones added impetus to the Wheatstone project, due to start up in mid-2017.
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Texaco competitors
| Company name | Founded date | Revenue | Employee size | Job openings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CITGO Petroleum | 1910 | $24.1B | 3,400 | 2 |
| Hess | 1920 | $1.2B | 1,621 | 49 |
| Mobil Holdings | 1962 | $56.7M | 41,500 | 4 |
| Sunoco | 1886 | $22.7B | 6,513 | 8 |
| BP America Inc | 1909 | $164.2B | 70,100 | 79 |
| Meijer | 1934 | $19.6B | 70,000 | 980 |
| Short Stop Food Marts | 1971 | $101.7M | 200 | 24 |
| Davis Oil Co | 1946 | $9.0M | 25 | - |
| SUPER QUIK | 1977 | $4.2M | 19 | - |
| Remington Oil & Gas | - | - | 20 | - |
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Texaco may also be known as or be related to Texaco, Texaco Inc, Texaco Inc., Texaco Products Distributors, Texaco, Inc., The Texas Company (1902–1959) [1] Texaco (1959–2001) ChevronTexaco (2001–2005) [2] and Texas Company.