STANDARD OIL COMPANIES, American petroleum corporations which were formerly a single group operating throughout the world under the stock ownership of Standard Oil Company of New Jersey. In 1911 the United States Supreme Court ordered the dissolution of the N.J. company and shares of 33 subsidiaries were distributed to stockholders of the N.J. com pany.
Since that time there has been a gradually decreasing com munity of interest among the different units and the ownership of the shares has become widely diversified. There is now active competition between certain large former Standard Oil compa nies in every branch of petroleum activity, in domestic marketing territory, and in foreign trade.
As is the case with certain large independent companies, tre mendous growth of certain Standard Oil companies has been notable since the petroleum industry became a gasoline industry. Standard Oil companies, as the large independent companies, tended toward integration of their operations in the four major fields of production, transportation, refining, and marketing. More over, always active in foreign development and marketing, certain. Standard Oil companies, notably the N.J. company, Socony Vacuum, and the Standard Oil Company of California have held their important place in this respect. The Socony-Vacuum Oil Company was a merger in 1931 of two former Standard Oil cor porations, the Vacuum Oil Company and the Standard Oil Com pany of New York, a merger officially approved on the grounds that the companies were not competitive and the only such cor porate merger of former Standard Oil companies made since 191i. In the case of all the large Standard Oil companies, growth has been by plowing earnings back into expansion and by purchase and absorption or affiliation with existing independent companies.
It is estimated that former Standard Oil companies own and op erate about 3o% of U.S. refining capacity, whereas at the time
of dissolution and before the advent of the motor car, they prob ably accounted for 70%. In 1911 Standard Oil companies pur chased the bulk of their domestic crude oil requirements from independent producers, themselves engaging but little in producing. But this was quickly changed as large independent crude oil pro ducing companies built their own transportation systems and re fineries and enlarged their markets. Former Standard Oil compa- ' nies, it is estimated, produce about 2o% of U.S. crude oil produc tion.
The Standard Oil Company of New Jersey is the largest Ameri can oil company and one of the greatest American industrial cor porations. A tabulation showing the assets and net income of 32 leading oil companies in the United States for 1938 showed Stand ard Oil of N.J. the largest member of the group with total assets of $2,044,635,000 and earnings of $76,000,000. Socony-Vacuum ranked second with assets of $923,439,000 and profits of $40,107, 000. Standard Oil Company (Indiana), third largest in point of size with assets of $724,663,000, ranked fourth in earnings with $27,772,000. Standard Oil Company of California, with fourth largest assets totalling $605,138,000, was third in earnings with $28,876,000. Texas Corporation, fifth largest of the group with as sets of $605,361,000, ranked fifth in earnings with $23,139,000.
Of the total net earnings of the 32 companies, 51% was earned by the four leading Standard Oil companies. The four leading independent oil companies—Texas Corporation, Gulf Oil Corpora tion (assets $546,871,000), Shell-Union Oil Corporation (assets and Consolidated Oil Corporation (assets 000)—accounted for 16% of the group's total earnings.
Principal companies formerly in the Standard Oil group are: