55
declare that “his good side was every bit as good as his bad side was bad”
(Chernow 1998).
Although the Standard Oil Company and American Tobacco Company trusts
were successfully broken apart by President Taft, various industries in the U.S. continue to find the business model developed by attorney Samuel Dodd to be appealing. The Sherman Anti-Trust Act is still on the books, and the federal government
last invoked it in 2001 for a ruling against Microsoft Corporation (U.S. Court of
Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit 2001).
John D. Rockefeller wasn’t the only nineteenth century oil baron out there.
Companies from Great Britain, France, Holland and elsewhere were entering this
rapidly-growing market. Because Standard Oil had control of 95% of the oil in the
United States, other companies sought petroleum development opportunities elsewhere. Still, the United States had substantial refining capacity, and crude oil was
often transported to the U.S. for refining. All of these things helped turn oil into a
truly global commodity (Stevens 2013). The founding of the three biggest international petroleum companies, ExxonMobil, Royal Dutch Shell, and BP is described
briefly below. These companies are known as “super majors” and represent the face
of “Big Oil.”
ExxonMobil After the 1911 government-mandated breakup of the Standard Oil
Trust, one of the 34 resulting companies was the original Standard Oil (New Jersey),
now calling itself Jersey Standard. In 1919, Jersey Standard acquired a 50% interest
in Humble Oil & Refining Company of Texas, led by geologist Wallace Pratt. Pratt
is famous among geologists for being the first person to use microscopic fossils,
primarily foraminifera, to correlate time-equivalent stratigraphic units in the subsurface along the Gulf Coast. Jersey Standard brought out a new gasoline blend in 1926
under the trade name Esso, which few people realized was a simple phonetic rendition of the initials ‘S’ and ‘O’ from Standard Oil. The slogan “Put a Tiger in your
Tank” was adopted in the 1960s, and Esso became recognized as the corporate
brand for the company. In 1972, Jersey Standard held a special shareholders’ meeting where an official name change to Exxon Corporation was approved.
On November 30, 1999, Exxon acquired Mobil Oil Corporation, a descendant of
the Vacuum Oil Company founded in 1866. Vacuum Oil was one of the early companies snapped up by the Standard Oil Trust, and it was re-established as an independent corporation in the 1911 breakup. It became Mobil Oil Corporation in 1966
on the centennial of its founding. In a press release, the new ExxonMobil Corporation
stated that one goal of the merger was simply to improve efficiency (https://corporate.exxonmobil.com/Company/Who-we-are/Our-history; accessed 8/14/19).
Somewhere, John D. Rockefeller is smiling.
Royal Dutch Shell In the late nineteenth century, the wealthy Rothschild banking
family in France became interested in the production of Russia’s oil riches. Russia
at the time was a rather backward and poor country, so the Rothschilds commissioned
the world’s first oil tankers to transport their kerosene out of Russia to more lucrative markets. They engaged British traders Marcus Samuel, Jr. and his brother Sam,
3.2 Spindletop, Gushers, and the Advent of Big Oil
declare that “his good side was every bit as good as his bad side was bad”
(Chernow 1998).
Although the Standard Oil Company and American Tobacco Company trusts
were successfully broken apart by President Taft, various industries in the U.S. continue to find the business model developed by attorney Samuel Dodd to be appealing. The Sherman Anti-Trust Act is still on the books, and the federal government
last invoked it in 2001 for a ruling against Microsoft Corporation (U.S. Court of
Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit 2001).
John D. Rockefeller wasn’t the only nineteenth century oil baron out there.
Companies from Great Britain, France, Holland and elsewhere were entering this
rapidly-growing market. Because Standard Oil had control of 95% of the oil in the
United States, other companies sought petroleum development opportunities elsewhere. Still, the United States had substantial refining capacity, and crude oil was
often transported to the U.S. for refining. All of these things helped turn oil into a
truly global commodity (Stevens 2013). The founding of the three biggest international petroleum companies, ExxonMobil, Royal Dutch Shell, and BP is described
briefly below. These companies are known as “super majors” and represent the face
of “Big Oil.”
ExxonMobil After the 1911 government-mandated breakup of the Standard Oil
Trust, one of the 34 resulting companies was the original Standard Oil (New Jersey),
now calling itself Jersey Standard. In 1919, Jersey Standard acquired a 50% interest
in Humble Oil & Refining Company of Texas, led by geologist Wallace Pratt. Pratt
is famous among geologists for being the first person to use microscopic fossils,
primarily foraminifera, to correlate time-equivalent stratigraphic units in the subsurface along the Gulf Coast. Jersey Standard brought out a new gasoline blend in 1926
under the trade name Esso, which few people realized was a simple phonetic rendition of the initials ‘S’ and ‘O’ from Standard Oil. The slogan “Put a Tiger in your
Tank” was adopted in the 1960s, and Esso became recognized as the corporate
brand for the company. In 1972, Jersey Standard held a special shareholders’ meeting where an official name change to Exxon Corporation was approved.
On November 30, 1999, Exxon acquired Mobil Oil Corporation, a descendant of
the Vacuum Oil Company founded in 1866. Vacuum Oil was one of the early companies snapped up by the Standard Oil Trust, and it was re-established as an independent corporation in the 1911 breakup. It became Mobil Oil Corporation in 1966
on the centennial of its founding. In a press release, the new ExxonMobil Corporation
stated that one goal of the merger was simply to improve efficiency (https://corporate.exxonmobil.com/Company/Who-we-are/Our-history; accessed 8/14/19).
Somewhere, John D. Rockefeller is smiling.
Royal Dutch Shell In the late nineteenth century, the wealthy Rothschild banking
family in France became interested in the production of Russia’s oil riches. Russia
at the time was a rather backward and poor country, so the Rothschilds commissioned
the world’s first oil tankers to transport their kerosene out of Russia to more lucrative markets. They engaged British traders Marcus Samuel, Jr. and his brother Sam,
3.2 Spindletop, Gushers, and the Advent of Big Oil