SOHIO
BP merged with Standard Oil of Ohio, an early player in what turned out to be the Alaskan oil boom.
In 1969, BP signed an agreement with the Standard Oil Company of Ohio (SOHIO) to refine and market its crude oil from the newly discovered Prudhoe Bay on Alaska’s North Slope, the biggest oilfield in the U.S. SOHIO was the market leader in Ohio and was strongly represented in neighboring states.
Under the agreement, which became effective in 1970, SOHIO took over BP's leases at Prudhoe Bay and some East Coast downstream assets that BP had acquired in 1968. In return, BP acquired 25 percent of Standard's equity, a stake that would rise to a majority holding in 1978 when Standard's share of Alaskan production passed 600,000 barrels a day.
In 1987, BP made an offer for the 45 percent of Standard Oil of Ohio that it did not already own. After acquiring SOHIO outright, BP combined its existing interests in the United States with Standard's operations to form a new company: BP America.
The merging of Standard Oil into BP gave the group access to the full potential of the world's biggest market as well as to Standard's considerable cash flow.
Standard Oil Trust
Rockefeller’s original Standard Oil Company had been incorporated in Ohio in 1870 and for years was the spearhead of the Standard Oil Trust (which would be broken up in 1911 by the Sherman Antitrust Act). In 1889, Rockefeller had formed Standard Oil Company (Indiana) at what today is the site of BP's refinery in Whiting, Ind.
Standard of Indiana and its fledgling refinery faced an initial challenge of refining high-sulfur crude oil from a field near Lima, Ohio. Despite its modest roots, during the next century that company would grow into one of the world’s great oil companies, Amoco, which merged with BP in 1998.
