Charles Lockhart establishes the Atlantic Refining Company, the first refinery in the United States.
Rio Grande Oil merges with other companies to become the Richfield Oil Corporation.
ARCO purchases an eight percent stake in the Russian oil company Lukoil.
ARCO sells its majority interest in ARCO Chemical Company and spins off its U.S. coal assets.
Atlantic Richfield Company, better known as ARCO, is the seventh-largest U.S. oil company. A vertically integrated company, ARCO explores for, produces, refines, and markets crude oil, natural gas, and natural gas liquids. Although the company has operations in the North Sea, Indonesia, Russia, Venezuela, Pakistan, China, and Algeria, its largest reserves and most productive operations are in Alaska. In the lower 48 states, it is the largest marketer of gasoline in five western states, with 1,700 gasoline stations. In 1999, the company announced plans to merge with BP Amoco plc, itself created through the 1998 merger of British Petroleum and Amoco. The merger, if accomplished, would make BP Amoco the world's second largest oil and gas company.
ARCO's origins go back to the discrete histories of Atlantic Refining Company and Richfield Oil Corporation. In 1865, six years after Drake's Folly, the world's first oil derrick, went into operation, Charles Lockhart and his partners established the Atlantic Refining Company in Philadelphia, the first refinery in the United States. Not surprisingly, Atlantic was unable to compete successfully in the turbulent world of petroleum, and in 1874, the gigantic Standard Oil Trust swallowed up Atlantic, although the merger was kept a secret, with Atlantic retaining its name and personnel. Atlantic possessed the largest petroleum refinery in greater Philadelphia, and the company continued to grow as a subsidiary of Standard.
Atlantic's fortunes changed radically after the turn of the century. Theodore Roosevelt's trust busting was carried out faithfully by his successor, William Howard Taft. In 1911 a federal court successfully prosecuted Standard Oil, compelling it to dissolve into smaller entities, one of which was Atlantic Refining Company. Newly independent Atlantic had refineries but was dependent on others for crude oil. As a result, its president, John Wesley Van Dyke, made crude-oil self-sufficiency his goal, and under his skillful management, Atlantic increased its exploration activities.
Richfield's history is dramatically and colorfully told by its former president, Charles S. Jones, in From the Rio Grande to the Arctic: the Story of the Richfield Oil Corporation . Jones delves into the earliest history of Richfield, whose predecessor, the Rio Grande Oil Company, was established by a store-owner in El Paso, Texas, in 1915. Rio Grande's good fortune coincided with the heyday of Pancho Villa's raids across the border. In order to rid frontier towns like El Paso of Villa, the U.S. Army pursued Villa and his raiders deep into Mexican territory, using some 600 trucks to supply its troops. The army inadvertently became the largest consumer of Rio Grande oil at that time. From then on, the company's growth went unhindered, and its headquarters eventually shifted from Texas to California.
The Great Depression took a heavy toll on the Rio Grande Oil Company, forcing it in 1936 to reorganize and merge with other companies to become the modern Richfield Oil Corporation with Charles Jones as its president. Richfield embarked on a new era, marked by a significant oil discovery in California in 1938. Richfield consequently was well-prepared for the challenges of World War II, when the entire U.S. oil industry faced wartime demand. A pioneer in the manufacture of high-octane aviation gasoline, Richfield increased its high-octane production in 1941-1942 by 150 percent. By 1948, according to Jones, Richfield had developed into a highly successful, well-balanced oil company.
Richfield, unlike Atlantic, continued its success in finding crude oil. In
