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Exxon Mobil Corporation (International: Esso), headquartered in Irving, Texas, is an oil corporation, formed on November 30, 1999, by the merger of Exxon and Mobil.
In 1911, after a United States Supreme Court ruling which upheld a federal court order to dissolve the Standard Oil Trust, Jersey Standard and Socony (along with 32 other companies) were spun off from the Trust. In the same year, the nation's kerosene output was eclipsed for the first time by gasoline. The growing automotive market inspired the product trademark Mobiloil, registered by Socony in 1920.
Over the next decade, both companies grew significantly. Jersey Standard acquired a 50 percent interest in Humble Oil & Refining Co., a Texas oil producer. Socony purchased a 45 percent interest in Magnolia Petroleum Co., a major refiner, marketer and pipeline transporter. In 1931, Socony merged with Vacuum Oil Co., an industry pioneer dating back to 1866 and a growing Standard Oil spin-off in its own right.
In the Asia-Pacific region, Jersey Standard had oil production and refineries in Indonesia but no marketing network. Socony-Vacuum had Asian marketing outlets supplied remotely from California. In 1933, Jersey Standard and Socony-Vacuum merged their interests in the region into a 50-50 joint venture. Standard-Vacuum Oil Co., or "Stanvac," operated in 50 countries, from East Africa to New Zealand, before it was dissolved in 1962.
Mobil Chemical Company was established in 1960. As of 1999 its principal products included basic olefins and aromatics, ethylene glycol and polyethylene. The company produced synthetic lubricant base stocks as well as lubricant additives, propylene packaging films and catalysts. Exxon Chemical Company became a worldwide organization in 1965 and in 1999 was a major producer and marketer of olefins, aromatics, polyethylene and polypropylene along with specialty lines such as elastomers, plasticizers, solvents, process fluids, oxo alcohols and adhesive resins. The company was an industry leader in metallocene catalyst technology to make unique polymers with improved performance.
In 1955 Socony-Vacuum became Socony Mobil Oil Co. and in 1966 simply Mobil Oil Corp. A decade later, the newly incorporated Mobil Corporation absorbed Mobil Oil as a wholly owned subsidiary. Jersey Standard changed its name to Exxon Corporation in 1972 and established Exxon as a trademark throughout the United States. In other parts of the world, Exxon and its affiliated companies continued to use its Esso trademark.
On March 24 1989, shortly after midnight, the oil tanker Exxon Valdez struck Bligh Reef in Prince William Sound, Alaska, spilling more than 11 million gallons (42,000 m³) of crude oil. The spill was the largest in U.S. history, and in the aftermath of the Exxon Valdez incident Congress passed the Oil Pollution Act of 1990.
In 1998, Exxon and Mobil signed a US$73.7 billion definitive agreement to merge and form a new company called Exxon Mobil Corporation, the largest company on the planet. After shareholder and regulatory approvals, the merger was completed November 30, 1999 (the deal was announced the next day).
The current CEO of ExxonMobil is Lee Raymond.
ExxonMobil controls concessions covering 12 million acres (49,000 km²) off the coast of Angola that hold an estimated 7.5 billion barrels (1.2 km³) of crude. To secure the concessions, ExxonMobil paid Angolan President José Eduardo dos Santos millions of dollars in the late 1990s, which the regime used to help prolong Angola's ruinous civil war.
In 2000, ExxonMobil sold a California refinery and 340 Exxon-branded stations to Valero Energy Corporation, as part of a divestiture of California assets. They continue to operate over 700 Mobil branded outlets in the state.
In 2003, the Office of Foreign Assets Control reported that ExxonMobil engaged in illegal trade with Sudan and had to settle with the United States government for US$50,000 .
In the United States, the brandname "Esso" is no longer used, but the company markets under both this name and "Mobil" in the rest of the world.
Exxon Mobil is regarded by environmental activists as an egregious example of disregard for environmental concerns by US-based corporations (and their financial influence as a likely cause for their disregard by the US government). For this reason the company has been a target for a number of political campaigns, including the Stop Esso campaign, held by Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and People and Planet, and aimed at boycotting Esso. These organisations commonly parody the company's brandname as "E$$O" to indicate their belief that the company is only interested in short-term profit, and is willing to use its financial power to buy influence.