UNOCAL CORPORATION

formerly (18901983) Union Oil Company Of California, American petrochemical corporation founded in 1890 with the union of three wildcatter companiesthe Hardison & Stewart Oil Company, the Sespe Oil Company, and the Torrey Canyon Oil Company. Originally centred in Santa Paula, Calif., it became headquartered in Los Angeles in 1900. Its present name was adopted in 1983, when the company was reorganized. Its founders were Wallace L. Hardison (18501909), Lyman Stewart (18401923), and Thomas R. Bard (18411915), the company's first president and, later, a U.S. senator (190005). Initially an oil producer and refiner, Union began, after the turn of the century, to construct pipelines and tankers and to market products not only in the United States but also in Europe, South America, and the Orient. In 1917 it bought Pinal-Dome Oil Company and its 20 filling stations in southern California, thus beginning retail operations. In 1965 it acquired, through merger, the Pure Oil Company (operating mainly in Texas and the Gulf of Mexico), thereby doubling Union's size. Unocal engages in the worldwide exploration, production, transportation, and marketing of crude oil and natural gas; the manufacture and sale of petroleum products, chemicals, and fertilizers; the mining, processing, and sale of such elements as molybdenum, columbium, rare earths, and uranium; and the development of geothermal power. It owns a major interest in Union Oil Company of Canada Ltd. The company's trademark is Union 76.