Unocal Corporation

The Union Oil Company of California was incorporated on October 17, 1890, in Santa Paula, California, after founding members Lyman Stewart, Wallace L. Hardison and Thomas Bard merged their respective California oil interests: Hardison and Stewart Oil, Sespe Oil, and Torrey Canyon Oil. Union's early years were marked by struggle and infighting between the company's founders; nonetheless, its first producing wells accounted for nearly one-fourth of California's oil production. By 1900, Lyman Stewart remained the sole founder still with the company, and under his auspices, and those of the Stewart family, Union Oil began its first real era of rapid growth. In late 1900, Stewart moved the company's offices to Los Angeles; from there, Union Oil quickly expanded south through Los Angeles County and beyond. In response to the popularization of the automobile and the demand for motor oil, which the company itself had helped to foster by marketing oil fuel as a viable energy source, Union began to open service stations up and down southern California, augmenting these stations with twenty established ones acquired from the purchase of Pinal Dome Oil in 1917. With this distribution network and the introduction of its iconic 76 retail brand, Union Oil, or Union 76 as it came to be known, helped to shape both southern California's landscape and its history. Midway through the twentieth century, Union had built the world's first oil tanker, had begun drilling in Alaska and Colorado, and had begun to experiment with oil shale and alternatives to crude oil. By the 1960s, however, two-thirds of the company's production still came from California. In that same decade, the company's strategy shifted dramatically as Fred Hartley was appointed CEO and Union Oil saw another era of revitalization. To keep Union competitive, Hartley pushed for increased oil exploration and expansion, and he invested substantial resources into developing geothermal power and liquefied natural gas as an automotive fuel. Union Oil's merger with the Pure Oil Company in 1965 also won Union Oil a significant international reputation as a producer, refiner, and marketer. The merger, unprecedented in size, made Union the ninth largest oil company in the United States and led to huge oil and gas discoveries in Southeast Asia. Throughout the remainder of the sixties and seventies Union Oil continued to grow, becoming the world's largest producer of geothermal power in 1967, signing the first gas sales contract with Thailand in 1978, and joining Standard Oil and Phillips, among others, to form the Alyeska Pipeline Service responsible for building the TransAlaska Pipeline. With this growth, Union Oil also saw an increase in public relations disasters and takeover bids. In 1969, one of Union's drilling platforms off the coast of California leaked hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil into the water and onto the beaches of Santa Barbara. The incident helped turn public and political opinion against offshore drilling and likewise gained the company a bad reputation among environmentalists. To compound these troubles, Union had fallen into greater and greater debt trying to fend off several takeovers towards the end of the century and in 1983 had to reorganize under the Unocal Corporation as a defense against further such attempts. Despite its financial difficulties, the company continued to grow outside of the United States, particularly in Asia and Latin America, eventually even becoming profitable again. The final years of the Union Oil Company were marked by speculation as to the company's future, further talks of takeovers, and more negative press--including revelations that Unocal had been dealing with the Taliban regime before September 11, 2001. After more than 100 years as one of America's largest and most historied independent companies, Union Oil and Unocal finally agreed in 2005 to be acquired by the ChevronTexaco Corporation.

Biography

The Union Oil Company of California was incorporated on October 17, 1890, in Santa Paula, California, after founding members Lyman Stewart, Wallace L. Hardison, and Thomas Bard merged their respective California oil interests: Hardison and Stewart Oil, Sespe Oil, and Torrey Canyon Oil. Union's early years were marked by struggle and infighting between the company's founders; nonetheless, its first producing wells accounted for nearly one-fourth of California's oil production. By 1900, Lyman Stewart remained the sole founder still with the company, and under his auspices, and those of the Stewart family, Union Oil began its first real era of rapid growth. In late 1900, Stewart moved the company's offices to Los Angeles, and from there Union Oil quickly expanded south through Los Angeles County and beyond. In response to the popularization of the automobile and the demand for motor oil, which the company itself had helped to foster by marketing oil fuel as a viable energy source, Union began to open service stations up and down southern California, augmenting these stations with twenty established ones acquired from the purchase of Pinal Dome Oil in 1917. With this distribution network and the introduction of its iconic 76 retail brand, Union Oil, or Union 76 as it came to be known, helped to shape both southern California's landscape and its history.

Midway through the twentieth century, Union had built the world's first oil tanker, had begun drilling in Alaska and Colorado, and had begun to experiment with oil shale and alternatives to crude oil. By the 1960s, however, two-thirds of the company's production still came from California. In that same decade, the company's strategy shifted dramatically as Fred Hartley was appointed CEO and Union Oil saw another era of revitalization. To keep Union competitive, Hartley pushed for increased oil exploration and expansion, and he invested substantial resources into developing geothermal power and liquefied natural gas as an automotive fuel. Union Oil's merger with the Pure Oil Company in 1965 also won Union Oil a significant international reputation as a producer, refiner, and marketer. The merger, unprecedented in size, made Union the ninth largest oil company in the United States and led to huge oil and gas discoveries in Southeast Asia. Throughout the remainder of the sixties and seventies Union Oil continued to grow, becoming the world's largest producer of geothermal power in 1967, signing the first gas sales contract with Thailand in 1978, and joining Standard Oil and Phillips, among others, to form the Alyeska Pipeline Service responsible for building the TransAlaska Pipeline.

With this growth, Union Oil also saw an increase in public relations disasters and takeover bids. In 1969, one of Union's drilling platforms off the coast of California leaked hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil into the water and onto the beaches of Santa Barbara. The incident helped turn public and political opinion against offshore drilling and likewise gained the company a bad reputation among environmentalists. To compound these troubles, Union had fallen into greater and greater debt trying to fend off several takeovers towards the end of the century and in 1983 had to reorganize under the Unocal Corporation as a defense against further such attempts. Despite its financial difficulties, the company continued to grow outside of the United States, particularly in Asia and Latin America, eventually even becoming profitable again. The final years of the Union Oil Company were marked by speculation as to the company's future, further talks of takeovers, and more negative press-including revelations that Unocal had been dealing with the Taliban regime before September 11, 2001. After more than 100 years as one of America's largest and most historied independent companies, Union Oil and Unocal finally agreed in 2005 to be acquired by the ChevronTexaco Corporation.