A todays Exxon-Mobil is the parent of Exxon, Mobil, & Esso corporations around the world. Of the little joe big oil corporations in the globe (Exxon-Mobil, Shell, BP, and Total), Exxon-Mobil is the largest of them altogether. A todays CEO of ExxonMobil is Lee Raymond.

Name

Exxon formally replaced a Esso, Enco, & Humble brands in January 1, 1973 in the USA. A title Esso, which sounds such as S-O, attracted protests from either more Standard Oil spinoffs because of its similarity to the name of the parent company, Standard Oil. Hence, a company was restricted from either applying Esso around the America except in people states awarded to that in the 1911 Standard Oil antitrust class action settlement. Within states in which a Esso brand was blackballed, a company marketed its gasolene under a Humble or even Enco brands. A Humble br& wwhen utilized at Texas stations for decades as victims operations were under a counsel of Jersey Standard affiliate, Humble Oil, & in the mid-to-late 1950s expanded to more Southwestern states including Just released Mexico, Arizona and Oklahoma.

Inside 1960, Jersey Standard gained to the full control of Humble Oil & Purification Co., & across the reorganization of the company, restructured Humble into Jersey's household marketing & purification section to sell & market gasolene countrywide under a Esso, Enco & Humble brands. A Enco brand was introduced by Humble around 1960 at stations inside Ohio however was presently blackballed fallowing Standard Oil of Ohio (Sohio) protested that Enco (Humble's acronym for "ENergy COmpany) sounded and looked too much like Esso as it shared the same oval logo with blue border and red letters with the two middle letters the only difference. At that point, the stations in Ohio would be rebranded Humble until the name change to Exxon in 1972.

After the Enco brand was discontinued in Ohio, it was moved to other non-Esso states. In 1961, Humble stations in Oklahoma, New Mexico and Arizona were rebranded as Enco and the Enco brand appeared on gasoline and lubricant products at Humble stations in Texas that same year with service stations there changed to Enco in 1962. By that time, Jersey had expanded the Enco brand to stations in the Midwest and Northwest that had been operated by various subsidaries such as Carter, Pate and Oklahoma among others.

In 1963, Humble was approached by Tidewater Oil Company - a major gasoline marketer along the eastern and western seaboards - to purchase the firm's refining and marketing operations on the west coast, a move that would have given Humble a large number of existing stations and a refinery in California - which was then the fastest growing gasoline market. However, the Justice Department objected to Humble's plan to purchase Tidewater's west coast operations, which were later sold to Phillips Petroleum in 1966. Meanwhile, Humble gradually built up new and rebranded service stations in California and other western states under the Enco brand and purchased a large number of stations from Signal Oil Company in 1967, followed by the opening of a new refinery near Monterey in 1969.

In 1966, the Justice Department ordered Humble to "prevent & desist" from using the Esso brand at stations in several Southeastern states following protests from Standard Oil of Kentucky (a Standard Oil of California subsidary by that time). By 1967, stations in each of those states were rebranded as Enco.

Despite the success of the "Put The Tiger For your Tank" advertising campaign introduced by Humble in 1964 to promote its Enco/Esso Extra gasolines, the similar logotypes, use of the Humble name in all Esso/Enco ads and the uniformity in design and products of Humble stations nationwide, the company still had difficulties promoting itself as a nationwide gasoline marketer competing against truly national brands such as Texaco - then a 50-state marketer and the only company selling products under one brand name in each state. Humble officials realized by the late 1960s that the time had come to swallow its pride by developing a new brand name that could be used nationwide throughout the U.S. At first, consideration was given to simply rebranding all stations as "Enco" but that was shelved when it was learned that the Japanese translation of "Enco" was "stalled car."

In order to create a unified brand, the company changed its corporate name from Jersey Standard to Exxon, rebranding all its U.S. stations under the latter title in the summer and fall of 1972 following the successful test marketing of the Exxon brand and logo in late 1971 and early 1972 at rebranded Enco/Esso stations in certain U.S. cities. However, the unrestricted international use of the popular brand Esso prompted the company to continue using Esso outside of the USA. Esso is the only widely used Standard Oil brand left in existence. Other Standard Oil descendants, such as BP and Chevron, do however maintain a few stations with the Standard Oil brand in specific states in order to retain their trademarks and prevent others from using them.

The rectangular Exxon logo with the blue strip at the bottom and red lettering with the two "Ten's" interlinked together was designed by noted industrial stylist Raymond Loewy. The interlinked "10's" are incorporated in the modern-day Exxonmobil logo.

History

Both Exxon and Mobil were descendants of the old John D. Rockefeller monopoly, Standard Oil. In 1911, after a United States Supreme Court ruling which upheld a federal court order to dissolve it, the Standard Oil Trust was split into 34 companies. Two of these companies were Jersey Standard, which eventually became Exxon, and Socony ("Standard Oil Company of New York"), which eventually became Mobil.

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 [http://www.humble-inc.com/humblehistory.htm/ 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 U.S. Congress passed the Oil Pollution Act of 1990. At the time of the spill, Exxon paid $300 million immediately and voluntarily to more than 11,000 Alaskans and businesses affected by the Valdez spill. In addition, the company paid $2.2 billion on the cleanup of Prince William Sound, staying with the cleanup from 1989 to 1992, when the State of Alaska and the U.S. Coast Guard declared the cleanup complete. Exxon also has paid $1 billion in settlements with the state and federal governments. Virtually all Valdez compensatory damages were paid in full within one year of the accident, and the trial court commended Exxon for coming forward "with its population & its pocketbook & doing what got to exist as done under hard circumstances." However, Exxon has yet to pay up for the largest ruling against it, making no payments on $4.5 billion in punitive damages and perpetually appealing each successive judgment for the past 16 years.

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).

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 2005, its stock price surged in parallel with rising oil prices, surpassing General Electric as the largest corporation in the world in terms of market capitalization.

Exxon's long-time mascot is a Tiger; Mobil's mascot is a Pegasus which dates back to the late 19th century and is one of the oldest marketing symbols still in use.

ExxonMobil now has the most assets in the world, and generated 246.7 billion dollars in total revenue for 2003.

Allegations against ExxonMobil

ExxonMobil's activities in the Indonesian territory of Aceh, where the company extracts and exports natural gas, have attracted scrutiny. In June 2001, ExxonMobil became the target of a lawsuit in the Federal District Court of the District of Columbia, under the Alien Tort Claims Act. The suit alleged that the company knowingly assisted human rights violations, including torture, murder and rape, by employing and providing material support to Indonesian military forces, who committed the alleged offenses in Aceh. Human rights complaints involving ExxonMobil's relationship with the Indonesian military first arose in 1992; numerous inquiries have found evidence of human rights violations on ExxonMobil property and/or committed by Indonesian troops guarding ExxonMobil facilities. The company denies these accusations and filed a motion to dismiss the suit, which is still pending as of 2005. The U.S. State Department filed an opinion in the case in July 2002, requesting that the suit, brought by the International Labor Rights Fund, be dismissed on national security grounds. [http://www.amnestyusa.org/justearth/indonesia.html]

ExxonMobil controls concessions covering 11 million acres (44,500 km²) off the coast of Angola that hold an estimated 7.5 billion barrels (1.2 km³) of crude. [http://www2.exxonmobil.com/Corporate/Newsroom/Newsreleases/Corp_xom_nr_071201.asp] Questions have been raised about ExxonMobil's actions in securing these concessions—Forbes Magazine alleging that "ExxonMobil handed hundreds of millions of dollars to the corrupt regime of President José Eduardo dos Santos in the late 1990s". [http://www.forbes.com/forbes/free_forbes/2003/0428/084.html]

In 2003, the Office of Foreign Assets Control reported that ExxonMobil engaged in illegal trade with Sudan and along with dozens of other companies had to settle with the United States government for US$50,000 [http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/04/14/enemy.trading/index.html].

Exxon Mobil is regarded by many environmental activists as an example of disregard for environmental concerns by US-based corporations. 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", an example of alternative political spelling, 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. Unlike other major oil companies such as Shell Oil and British Petroleum, Exxon is one of the few that has actively fought the Kyoto Protocol and disputed scientific opinion on global climate change.

Greenpeace have been campaigning against ESSO for many years and their main reasons for doing so include their position on the issue of climate change. They also claim that Esso has flatly refused to believe that the burning of fossil fuels has any negative effect on the environment or climate change as a whole, despite its being accepted by the scientific community. As soon as Bush was elected, they argue, the USA - the world's biggest polluter - withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol, the international measure to cut down on global warming.

Kelloggs sued Exxon because the Tiger mascot looked like Tony the Tiger.

Diversity

ExxonMobil received a 14% rating from the Human Rights Campaign's Corporate Equality Index in 2004. The company had previously lost points because it took action against the equal rights of LGBT people at the time of the merger.

Sexual orientation was taken out of the ExxonMobil non-discrimination policy following Mobil's merger with Exxon. However, ExxonMobil contends in other publications that the non-discrimination policy does apply to sexual orientation, even though it is not written expressly in the policy.

Domestic partner benefits were ended following Mobil's merger with Exxon. Mobil employees who already had DP benefits were allowed to keep them, but no other employees could join after the merger. ExxonMobil does offer DP benefits in countries where same-sex marriage is legal.

Corporate governance
Current members of the board of directors of ExxonMobil are: Michael Boskin, William George, James Houghton, William Howell, Reatha King, Philip Lippincott, Henry McKinnell, Jr., Marilyn Nelson, Lee Raymond (chairman), Walter Shipley, and Rex Tillerson.