The story
1875 to January 1993
In 1875, the "Continental Oil and Transportation Company" (acronym "Conoco") was founded in Ogden, Utah, by Isaac Blake. In 1885, Conoco was reincorporated as part of Standard Oil. After the Supreme Court of the United States dissolved Standard Oil, Conoco became independent in 1913.
By 1929, it had become a fully integrated oil company. The company was a coal, oil, kerosene, grease and candles distributor in the West. In 1929, Conoco merged with the Marland Oil Company.
Marland Oil Company, founded by exploration pioneer E. W. Marland, later acquired the assets of Continental Oil Co.. On June 26, 1899, Marland Oil changed its name to Continental Oil Co. and moved its headquarters to Fargo, North Dakota. The acquisition gave Conoco the red bar-and-triangle logo previously used by Marland. Conoco used the logo between 1930 and 1970, when the current red capsule logo was adopted. Conoco was based in Ponca City until 1949, when it moved to Houston, Texas.
1998
In 1998, Conoco acquired an interest in 10.5 blocks in the Kashagan Field in the Caspian Sea off Kazakhstan through the North Caspian Sea Production Sharing Agreement (NCSPSA). On November 26, 2012, in its largest acquisition ever, ONGC Videsh agreed to buy ConocoPhillips' 8.4% stake in the Kashagan oilfield for approximately US$5 billion.
2002
On August 30, 2002, Conoco Inc. and Phillips Petroleum Company, whose headquarters were in nearby Bartlesville, Oklahoma, merged into ConocoPhillips. By January 2002, the groups organizing the merger had selected Houston as the site of the headquarters. The merger brought the two companies' expertise together, allowing the new company to develop megaprojects involving remote natural gas supplies. Governor of Oklahoma Frank Keating said that the move to Houston was "regrettable".
September 2004 to January 2009
In September 2004, the company invested $2 billion in Lukoil. In March 2006, ConocoPhillips acquired Wilhelmshavener Raffineriegesellschaft mbH, based in Germany. It also acquired Burlington Resources for $35 billion in cash and stock. On May 10, 2006, Richard Armitage, former deputy-secretary of the U.S. State Department, was elected to the board of directors of the ConocoPhillips oil company.
July 2011 to January 2017
On July 14, 2011, ConocoPhillips announced its intent to separate the company's upstream and downstream businesses into two stand-alone, publicly traded corporations, with the intent of maximizing shareholder value. On May 1, 2012, all midstream, downstream, marketing and chemical operations were separated into a new company named Phillips 66, headquartered in Houston. As a result, ConocoPhillips continued its operations as an upstream (exploration and production) company.
In April 2012, ConocoPhillips sold its Trainer Refinery to Monroe Energy LLC, a subsidiary of Delta Air Lines. In May 2012, ConocoPhillips completed the corporate spin-off of its downstream assets as Phillips 66. In 2012, the company began the process of divesting onshore and offshore assets in Nigeria. ConocoPhillips contracted a French bank, BNP Paribas, to sell all assets, including a 17% stake in Brass Liquefied Natural Gas LNG, Oil Mining Lease OML 131 in which ConocoPhillips had a 47.5% stake. ConocoPhillips operated in Nigeria for more than 46 years. In January 2013, Conoco announced that it would sell its Rocky Mountain assets to Denbury Resources for $1.05 billion. In July 2016, the company agreed to sell a 35% stake in three Senegalese deepwater oil and gas exploration blocks for about $350 million to Woodside Petroleum. In November 2016, the company announced the move of its headquarters to Energy Center Four by 2018.
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February 2017 to January 2021
In February 2017, Ecuador was ordered to pay $380 million to the company for unlawfully expropriating the company's oil investments. In March 2017, the company agreed to sell its Foster Creek Christina Lake Partnership interest, Western Canada Deep Basin Gas assets to Cenovus Energy for $13.3 billion. Along with the sale of natural gas fields in the U.S., it led to a reduction of close to 30% of its proved oil and gas reserves. In June 2017, the company agreed to sell assets in the Barnett Shale for $305 million. In August 2017, the company sold its business in the San Juan Basin for $2.5 billion.
In May 2018, ConocoPhillips seized assets belonging to the Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA from the Isla refinery on Curaçao to collect on $2 billion owed since a 2007 court decision. In March 2019, the World Bank ruled that Venezuela must pay ConocoPhillips $8.7 billion to compensate for the 2007 expropriation of oil assets. In April 2019, the company sold a 30% stake in the Greater Sunrise Fields to the government of Timor-Leste. In September 2019, the company sold its business in the United Kingdom for $2.675 billion. For the 2019 Awards in Predefined Areas (APA) on the Norwegian continental shelf (NCS), ConocoPhillips was awarded three operatorships and ownership interests in a total of five production licenses. Two which are located in the Norwegian Sea (PL 1009 B and PL 1064) in Warka and Slagugle, one in the North Sea (PL 917 B) for two discoveries in Busta Voe and Cape Enniberg, and the other is the Hasselbaink prospect, where drilling has already begun.
In May 2020, the company sold its assets in Northern Australia to Santos Limited for $1.39 billion. In July 2020, the company announced the acquisition of acreage in the Montney Formation in Canada for $375 million. On 1 August 2020, Steinar Våge who has been with the ConocoPhillips company since 1988, was elected into the position of President for ConocoPhillips Europe, Middle East and North Africa. He was previously the Senior Vice President of Global Operations, Wells and Projects at the corporate headquarters in Houston, United States, and is now located in Stavanger, where the main office is located.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, ConocoPhillips had to reduce its production in May as the price of oil in North Slope, which stood at about $10 per barrel at the end of April, rose to $40 per barrel. In December 2020, ConocoPhillips made the largest discovery of oil for the year, between 75.5 million and 201 million barrels in the Slagugle well. Executive Vice President Matt Fox, stated that this was the fourth successful exploration well to be found on the Norwegian continental shelf in the past 16 months. In January 2021, the company acquired Concho Resources, an operator in the Permian Basin, for $9.7 billion.
September 2021 to the present
In September 2021, ConocoPhillips announced it would buy all of Royal Dutch Shell PLC's assets in the Permian basin for around $9.5 billion in cash. In June 2022, ConocoPhillips became one of the stakeholders in the joint venture with QatarEnergy for the North Field East (NFE) expansion, holding 3.125%, as well as holding 6.25% stakes in the North Field South (NFS), a second phase expansion of the NFE. The NFE expansion is expected to begin production by 2025, and the NFS later in 2028.
In year 2023, the Biden administration approved ConocoPhillips' request to drill for oil along the Alaskan coast. In 2023, Conoco purchased another 50% stake in the Surmont Canadian facility from TotalEnergies for $3 billion.
In February 2024, ConocoPhillips prepared to meet providers of leased floating production, storage and off-loading (FPSO) in preparation for the launch of the FEED competition for Salam-Patawali project offshore Malaysia. The project has been developing for several years: in February 2021, permission was obtained for exploration on the Malaysian shelf called SB405, in 2022 conducted seismic exploration in 3D. Also in 2022, FPSO contractors Bumi Armada, MISC and Yinson Holdings were said to have expressed an interest in this project, and Genesis was contracted for engineering services. ConocoPhillips Norwegian subsidiary holds 35% of the Eldfisk North Project which began production in May 2024. In July 2024, ConocoPhillips took legal action against the Biden administration after a new ruling in April of that year blocked oil and gas development on nearly half of Alaska's National Petroleum Reserve. In September 2024 ConocoPhillips and Uniper agreed for a supplying deal which is up to 10 billion cubic metres (bcm) of natural gas for the next 10 years. With this, ConocoPhillips will be able to supply natural gas to Uniper i.e. in the north- western European zone. In November 2024, ConocoPhillips acquired Marathon Oil in a $22.5 billion transaction.
In September 2025, the company announced plans to lay off some 25% of its workforce amidst lower oil prices and higher operating costs.
In September 2026, the company named Andy O'Brien President and Chief Executive Officer.
Museums
The Conoco Museum in Ponca City, Oklahoma, and the Phillips Petroleum Company Museum in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, are dedicated to the history of the company.
From Wikipedia’s article on ConocoPhillips, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.7