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Union Oil Company of California, dba Unocal is a company that was a major petroleum explorer and marketer in the late 19th century, through the 20th century, and into the early 21st century. It was headquartered in El Segundo, California, United States.〔 Unocal Corporation. December 27, 1996. Retrieved on July 7, 2009.〕〔. Unocal Corporation. January 29, 2005. Retrieved on July 7, 2009.〕 Unocal was involved in domestic and global energy projects. Unocal was one of the key players in the CentGas consortium, which attempted to build the Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline to run from the Caspian area, through Afghanistan, to the Indian Ocean, at a time after the recent Taliban siege of Kabul in 1996. On August 10, 2005, Unocal merged its entire upstream petroleum business with Chevron Corporation and became a wholly owned subsidiary. Unocal has now ceased operations as an independent company, but continues to conduct many operations as Union Oil Company of California, a Chevron company. Since 1990, Unocal continues to have strong presence in the downstream petroleum business with their technical collaborators M/s Raaj Unocal Lubricants Ltd for manufacture and marketing of their lubricating products in Asia. Raaj Unocal Lubricants Ltd continues the legacy of Unocal 76 in the downstream petroleum business and has Intellectual property rights of the brand since 1994. ==History== The Union Oil Company of California was founded on October 17, 1890, in Santa Paula, California, by Lyman Stewart, Thomas Bard, and Wallace Hardison. It was a merger of three Southern California Oil Companies: the Sespe Oil Company, the Hardison and Stewart Oil Company, and the Mission Transfer Company.〔Marius Vassiliou, ''Historical Dictionary of the Petroleum Industry'' (Scarecrow Press, 2009). ISBN 0-8108-5993-9.〕 All three were notable as being completely unaffiliated with Standard Oil. Union Oil moved its headquarters to Los Angeles, in 1901. The original headquarters in Santa Paula is a California Historical Landmark. About 1910, Union Oil made a strategic alliance with the Independent Producers Agency, a group of small oil producers, to build pipelines from the Kern County oil fields to Union Oil facilities on the Pacific coast. This gave the independent producers an alternative to what they perceived as the low prices paid by Standard Oil and the high freight rates charged by the railroads to move crude oil.〔Ralph Arnold and V. R. Garfias, "Geology and technology of the California oil fields," ''Bulletin of the American Institute of Mining Engineers'', n.87, March 1914, p.390-392.〕 It gave Union access to a large volume of crude oil. The situation was later fictionalized in the 2007 film ''There Will Be Blood''. In 1919, the Union Oil Company of Delaware was incorporated as a holding company for the Union Oil Company of California.〔(''Poor's and Moodys manual consolidated'' ), Part 2, Moody Manual Co., 1921, pp. 1578-82 (retrieved 2 August 2010 from Google Books)〕 In 1920, Union Oil purchased the Central Petroleum Company from the Texas Company.〔 In 1922, the Union Oil Associates, Inc. was incorporated in California as a holding company to prevent control of the Union Oil Company of California passing to foreign interests after the merger of the Union Oil Company of Delaware with Royal Dutch Company.〔(''Moody's manual of railroads and corporation securities'' ), Part 2, Moody Manual Co., 1922, p. 1175 (retrieved 2 August 2010 from Google Books)〕 In 1961 Union entered into the Indonesian oil market. Henry L. Brandon, Union's Vice President of International Development wrote a "contract of work" arrangement, which was a first for Indonesia. In a speech on Indonesian Independence Day in August, 1961, then President Sukarno talked at some length about "production sharing", which included language written into the contract by Union executives. The company expanded to national status in 1965, when Union Oil merged with the Pure Oil Company, headquartered in what was then Palatine, Illinois and now Schaumburg, Illinois. Over the next two decades, Union became the major oil producer in southern Alaska and a major natural gas producer in the Gulf of Mexico. The company was reorganized in 1983, and Union Oil Company of California became an operating subsidiary of a new Delaware-based holding company, Unocal Corporation. In 1985, Mesa Petroleum, controlled by billionaire T. Boone Pickens, attempted a takeover of Unocal Corp.〔http://articles.latimes.com/1985-04-15/business/fi-14102_1_mesa-partners LA Times, ''Unocal Board Rejects Mesa Takeover Bid'', April 15, 1985〕 that resulted in the Delaware Supreme Court landmark decision Unocal v. Mesa Petroleum, which upheld Unocal's takeover defense. Virtually all operations are conducted by Union Oil Company of California (Union Oil). In 1977, Unocal acquired The Molybdenum Corporation of America (now Molycorp).〔David Danelski, (Expansion in works for S.B. County mine with troubled environmental past ), The Biz Press, February 9, 2009.〕 Among the assets acquired was Mountain Pass rare earth mine, a then world's largest producer of rare earth elements. In 1989, Unocal placed its midwest refining and marketing assets, including Union's refinery in Lemont, Illinois, into a 50/50 joint venture with Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (P.D.V.S.A.). The joint venture, known as the Uno-Ven Company, was headquartered in Arlington Heights, Illinois and primarily comprising employees from Union Oil's then Schaumburg, Illinois, division headquarters and Lemont, Illinois, refinery. The joint venture was dissolved in 1997, with P.D.V.S.A. receiving full ownership. During the life of the joint venture, the familiar Union 76 brand name continued in full force. At the termination of the joint venture, most stations were converted to Citgo, which is controlled by P.D.V.S.A. In 1990, Unocal entered into a technical collaboration with a multi million dollar business house of India M/s Raaj Unocal Lubricants Limited flagship company of Rajgarhia group of Industries via their chairman Late Shri K.L Rajgarhia to manufacture and market Unocal range of Lubricants and greases in India. Unocal subsequently under the provisions of their collaboration agreement granted permission of transferring IP rights to the brand name "UNOCAL 76", "76", "UNOCAL" both collectively and severely to M/s Raaj Unocal Lubricants Limited for Asia to protect their IP rights due to non existence of a bilateral agreement between USA and INDIA on IP rights. In 1997, Unocal sold its western United States refining and marketing operations to Tosco Corporation, including the rights to the Union 76 brand for refining and marketing (except in states where Uno-Ven operated). Tosco was later acquired by Phillips Petroleum who later merged with Conoco to form ConocoPhillips. 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「Unocal Corporation」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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