|
The Hess Corporation (formerly Amerada Hess) is an American integrated oil company headquartered in New York City, and a Fortune 100 corporation. The company explores, produces, transports, and refines crude oil and natural gas. Refined petroleum products, as well as natural gas and electricity, are marketed to customers throughout the East Coast of the United States. Although towered over in size by enormous global players in the same industry, Hess placed #75 in the 2013 Fortune 500 rankings. In 2014, Hess sold its gas station network to Marathon Petroleum in order to focus on exploration and production, reducing its headcount from 12,225 employees to 6,045 employees.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=10 companies cut the most jobs in 2014 )〕 The company has exploration and production operations in the United States, United Kingdom, Norway, Denmark, Russia, Equatorial Guinea, Algeria, Libya, Gabon, Egypt, Ghana, the Joint Development Area of Malaysia and Thailand, Indonesia, Thailand, Azerbaijan, Australia, Brazil, and St. Lucia. Hess is also active in the financial markets, through the Hess Energy Trading Company (HETCO), its trading arm. In 2015, Speedway has taken over the rest of the Hess stores. But in November 2015, Hess was still selling their Hess Holiday Truck toy for children at the final year for Hess. ==History== In 1919 British oil entrepreneur Lord Cowdray formed Amerada Corporation to explore for oil in North America. The firm was incorporated Feb. 7, 1920, in Delaware as a holding company for its principal subsidiary, the Amerada Petroleum Corporation. The oil producer experienced growth during most of the 1920s, hitting a peak in 1926 with a net income of US$4.9 million. However, in the years leading to the Great Depression, weakness in the oil markets contributed to sluggish profits. The aftermath of the market crash aggravated the unsteady oil industry. In the first quarter of 1930, the company experienced a minor loss. The early years of the Depression was a struggle against wavering demand and overproduction in some regions. Later into the 1930s, the financial forecast became more sanguine for Amerada. In December 1941, the company reorganized by merging the holding company with the principal operating subsidiary, Amerada Petroleum Corporation, into a simplified operating company. The new entity also adopted the former subsidiary's name. Robust postwar growth rocketed the company past US$100 million in sales in 1955. Hess Oil and Chemical, an oil refiner and marketer founded by Leon Hess, acquired 10% of the company for US$100 million in 1966 after the British government sold a stake it had amassed during World War II. Albert Levinson became the senior vice president and designed the Hess logo. Hess and Amerada would announce plans for a merger in December 1968. Some Amerada stockholders led by Morton Adler criticized the arrangement as being too favorable for Hess. Adler argued Amerada's oil reserves would contribute the lion's share of assets for the proposed company, so Amerada stockholders should retain more control of the new company. Before the stockholder vote on the matter, Phillips Petroleum, an integrated oil firm, approached Amerada with its own merger proposal, but the offer was declined in March. Still interested, Phillips nonetheless stated it would not carry out a proxy fight against the proposed Hess deal. Hess fearing such a strategy, made a cash tender offer of US$140 million for an additional 1.1 million shares of Amerada, which would double its holding in the company. The new shares would be employed in a May stockholder vote deciding the merger's fate. The vote took place amidst shareholder rancor that in addition to echoing Adler's arguments, objected to Amerada's financing of the recently completed tender offer. Hess planned to cancel the shares and the cost of the acquisition would be absorbed by the newly formed company. One shareholder at the meeting quipped, "It looks to me as if Hess is buying Amerada with Amerada's money." Proponents of the deal won, and the US$2.4 billion merger combining a purely production company with a refinery and marketer operation was completed.〔Benedict, Roger W. (May 16, 1969). "Merger of Amerada Petroleum, Hess Oil, Valued at $2.4 Billion, Voted by Holders". ''The Wall Street Journal'', pg 4.〕 However controversy was not yet extinguished by the stockholder confirmation. A class action federal lawsuit in 1972 claiming the proxy vote information was misleading. In 1976, a court agreed that the company falsely claimed to have considered each company's assets as a reason for the merger.〔"Court Rules Amerada's Holders Were Misled In Merger With Hess" (August 2, 1976). ''The Wall Street Journal'', p. 4.〕 In February 2000, Hess acquired the 51% shares of the Meadville Corporation it didn't already own, and rebranded all 178 Merit gas stations as Hess.〔http://www.nytimes.com/2000/02/15/nyregion/metro-business-amerada-hess-to-expand.html〕 The Merit gas station chain were primarily in the Boston, New York, and Philadelphia markets. In 2001, Amerada Hess purchased Triton Energy Limited in a cash tender deal valued at approximately US$3.2 billion. Triton, one of the largest independent oil and natural gas exploration and production companies in the U.S., had earned a reputation as a maverick oil company due to its highly successful yet potentially risky overseas exploration. According to Amerada Hess press releases at the time, Triton's major oil and gas assets in West Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia would strengthen its exploration and production business and give it access to long life international reserves. Hess also stated that the purchase was expected to immediately increase the company's per-day barrel output by more than 25 percent. Also in 2001, Amerada Hess entered into a joint venture with A.T. Williams Oil Co. of Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The company and its gas stations were called WilcoHess. Eventually, there were 1200 WilcoHess stations. Following on the heels of the Triton purchase, energy prices fell and global economies weakened. Amerada Hess struggled through the following years, posting a US$218 million loss in 2002 due primarily to a US$530 million charge relating to its write-down of the Ceiba oil field, but then posting steadily increasing profits from 2003 through 2006, when the company posted US$1.920 billion in net income. In May 2006, Amerada Hess Corp. changed its name to Hess Corp.〔(Amerada Hess Changes Name to Hess Corporation and Announces Three-for-one Stock Split; Company's Stock to Commence Trading Under Symbol ''HES'' on May 9, 2006 )〕 On January 18, 2012 the company announced that it would close the Hovensa refinery in St. Croix, United States Virgin Islands by mid-February 2012. The refinery will then serve as a storage terminal Hess will permanently close its Port Reading, New Jersey petroleum refinery by the end of February, 2013: Gas prices rose to their highest levels since October and Hess said it will lay off 170 of 217 employees, exit the refinery business and seek a buyer for its 19 storage terminals. It will focus on exploration and production.〔http://www.nj.com/business/index.ssf/2013/01/closure_of_hess_port_reading_r.html〕 A Hess press release〔Hess Announces Culmination of Transformation Into Pure Play E&P Company http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=101801&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1791659&highlight=〕 announces the company's plans for "Fully exiting the Company’s downstream businesses, including retail, energy marketing, and energy trading." 〔Announced Closure of Hess Corp.’s Port Reading Refinery Not Seen Having Major Impact On Gasoline Markets http://www.eurasiareview.com/07022013-announced-closure-of-hess-corp-s-port-reading-refinery-not-seen-having-major-impact-on-gasoline-markets-analysis/〕 there is no link between the rise in gas prices after the announcement of the closing of the Woodbridge (Port Reading) NJ facility. The output of that facility was more geared to the aviation and specialty fuels markets and not automotive grade products On March 4, 2013 Hess announced that it would sell its domestic refineries and retail operations and that it would also sell its holdings in Indonesia and Thailand. The ''New York Times'' also reported that Hess retail and refinery operations contributed about 4 percent of the company's revenue. It also noted that Hess will sell its holdings in Indonesia and Thailand.〔De La Merced, Michael J. ''New York Times''. "Hess to Sell Gas Stations as Part of a Shift in Strategy." March 4, 2013. Retrieved March 6, 2013.()〕 The company will focus exclusively on oil production, following a recent trend in the oil industry for companies to spin off their downstream assets and focus on their more profitable upstream business; ConocoPhillips and Marathon Oil have also made similar spinoffs in recent years with Phillips 66 and Marathon Petroleum, respectively. In April 2013, Hess Corp announced it would be selling its Russian unit to Lukoil for $2.05 billion. In July 2013, Hess Corp said it would sell its energy marketing unit to UK firm Centrica for around $1.03 billion. Hess Corp announced in October 2013 that it was planning on selling its East Coast and St.Lucia storage terminal network to Buckeye Partners LP for $850 million. Hess Corp announced in December 2013 that it is selling it's Indonesian assets to an Indonesian petroleum consortium. On January 8, 2014 Hess filed for a tax-free spin-off of its gas station network. The newly formed company was to be known as Hess Retail and will include over 1,200 stores throughout the Eastern United States. Before completing the spin-off, Marathon Petroleum subsidiary Speedway LLC announced on May 22, 2014 that it would acquire the retail unit of Hess Corp for $2.87 billion. Following the closure of the acquisition in late 2014, all Hess gas stations will be rebranded as Speedway gas stations by the end of 2017.〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=101801&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1933494&highlight= )〕 The transaction completed the transformation of Hess into an oil company focused solely on exploration and production, effectively reversing the Amerada merger almost 50 years prior. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Hess Corporation」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|