Mobil Oil Corporation, is a petroleum brand owned and operated by American oil and gas corporation ExxonMobil, formerly known as Exxon, which took its name after it and Mobil merged in 1999.
A direct descendant of Standard Oil, Mobil was originally known as the Standard Oil Company of New York (shortened to Socony) after Standard Oil was split into 43 different entities in a 1911 Supreme Court decision. Socony merged with Vacuum Oil Company, from which the Mobil name first originated, in 1931 and subsequently renamed itself to "Socony-Vacuum Oil Company".[2] Over time, Mobil became the company's primary identity, which prompted a renaming in 1955 to the "Socony Mobil Oil Company", and then in 1966 to the "Mobil Oil Corporation". Mobil credits itself as the first company to introduce paying at the pump at its gas stations, the first company to produce aviation fuel, as well as the first company to introduce a mobile payment device, called Speedpass.[3][1]
In 1998, Mobil announced it was merging with Exxon to form ExxonMobil, reuniting the two largest descendants of Standard Oil. The technicalities of the merger, which was completed on November 30, 1999, showed that Exxon bought Mobil, and Mobil shareholders received a payment of stock in Exxon.[4][5] Mobil continues as a brand name within the combined company, as well as still being a gas station sometimes paired with its own store or On the Run. Mobil's brand name is primarily used to market motor oils, such as Mobil 1. The former Mobil headquarters in Fairfax County, Virginia, was used as ExxonMobil's downstream headquarters[6] until 2015 when ExxonMobil consolidated employees into a new corporate campus in Spring, Texas.[7]
History
Brands
Mobil continues to operate as a major brandname of ExxonMobil within the ExxonMobil Fuels, Lubricants & Specialties division.[8] Many of its products feature the Mobil symbol of a red winged horse, Pegasus, which has been a company trademark since its affiliation with Magnolia Petroleum Company in the 1930s.
The Mobil brand now mainly covers a wide range of automotive, industrial, aviation and marine lubricants.[9] For historic reasons, the Mobil brand is still used by Mobil service stations and for fuel (gasoline, diesel, heating oil, kerosene, aviation fuels and marine fuel) products.
There are four main Mobil sub-brands:
Mobil Gasoline
Mobil is ExxonMobil's primary retail gasoline brand in California, Florida, New York, New England, the Great Lakes and the Midwest. The Mobil brand is also used to market gasoline in Australia, Canada (since 2017), Colombia, Egypt, Guam, Japan (until 2019), Malaysia (until 2012), Mexico (starting about first quarter of 2018), New Zealand, Nigeria, Puerto Rico (since 2022) and Guyana (since 2024).
Former brands
Discount gasoline stations
Mobil rebranded numerous stations to the Hi-Val, Reelo and Sello discount gasoline brands after major price increases following the 1970s oil crisis made a significant number of consumers extremely price conscious. The stations were converted Mobil stations selling convenience store items in the station lobby, while the service bays were rented to customers for do-it-yourself auto repairs. These brands were discontinued in the 1980s, after the gasoline market had recovered.[21]
Mobil Travel Guide
The Mobil Guide was an annual book of hotel and restaurant recommendations based on a system developed by Mobil in 1958. It rated businesses from one to five stars according to their assessed quality. In October 2009, ExxonMobil licensed the brand to Forbes magazine, which retitled the guide's various designations, e.g., Forbes Travel Guide, Forbes Five Stars, and so on. Forbes launched revised versions of various guides in late 2009.[22][23]
Mobil outside of the United States
Mobil UK
Vacuum Oil Company started selling lubricating oils in Europe in the late 19th century.[24] In 1885, the company established its European marketing organization in Liverpool, setting up small works in 1896 and 1901.[25] By the 1930s its Mobiloil had become one of the main brands. Mobil gradually expanded its operation into fuels retailing as well, and opened its first UK service stations in the early 1950s, after the wartime POOL monopoly was disbanded. Mobil grew to become the seventh largest brand of petrol in Britain, supplying 1,990 outlets in 1965, and claimed in the mid-1960s to be the first company to operate 100 self-service stations. As well as its downstream interests, Mobil was active in the North Sea and operated an oil refinery in Coryton (opened in 1953), on the Thames estuary. In 1996, Mobil's fuels operations in Europe were placed into a joint venture 70% owned by BP, and the Mobil brand disappeared from service stations. Mobil continued to sell lubricants through BP and independent service stations. Following Mobil's merger with Exxon, at the start of 2000 BP acquired all the petrol retailing assets as well as the Coryton refinery (but sold it to
Leadership
President
- 1) William Avery Rockefeller Jr., 1892–1911
- 2) Henry Clay Folger Jr., 1911–1923
- 3) Herbert Lee Pratt, 1923–1928
- 4) Charles Francis Meyer, 1928–1931
- 5) Charles Edward Arnott, 1931–1935
- 6) John Albert Brown, 1935–1944
- 7) Benjamin Brewster Jennings, 1944–1955
- 8) Albert Lindsay Nickerson Jr., 1955–1961
- 9) Herbert Willetts, 1961–1964
- 10) Rawleigh Warner Jr., 1965–1969
- 11) William Peter Tavoulareas
See also
- Mobil Showcase Network
- Previous headquarters buildings
- Socony-Mobil Building
- 26 Broadway
External links
References
- Exxon, Mobil to sell European assets Dallas Business Journal, September 29, 1999, retrieved 2022-09-17^
- Jeffrey B. Webb, Christopher R. Fee. Energy in American History: A Political, Social, and Environmental Encyclopedia [2 volumes] Bloomsbury Publishing USA, 2024^
- Our History www.exxon.com, retrieved 2021-12-07^