CONTINENTAL OIL COMPANY

(Conoco), American petroleum company founded in 1875 (as the Continental Oil and Transportation Company. In 1981 it was acquired by E.I. Du Pont de Nemours & Company and was reorganized as Continental Group. In addition to petroleum products, the group has interests in coal, other ores, and chemicals. The original company was founded in Ogden, Utah, but two years later it reincorporated in California. In 1885 it again reincorporatedwith the new name, Continental Oil Companyas part of the nationwide Standard Oil trust (see Standard Oil Company and Trust). In its early years its chief operations were marketing oil and related products, primarily in the Rocky Mountain area and in California. In 1913, two years after the U.S. Supreme Court dissolved the Standard Oil combine, the company was again independently incorporated. From 1913 to 1929 the company evolved into a fully integrated oil company from production to marketing, with operations in most states west of the Mississippi River. By 1929 Conoco had 1,800 producing wells and was selling half the gasoline consumed in the Rocky Mountain states. In that year it merged with Marland Oil Company (founded 1917), with wells and marketing operations from Oklahoma to Maryland. After World War II, Conoco acquired fields or refineries in Louisiana, Canada, Libya, Dubai, the North Sea, and Indonesia. In 1966 it acquired Consolidation Coal Company, the second largest coal company in the United States, and shortly thereafter began venturing into uranium and copper mining.