ConocoPhillips

Type: Public (NYSE: COP)
Founded: August 30, 2002 (merger)
Headquarters: Houston, Texas, USA
Key people: James Mulva, CEO & Chairman John Carrig, CFO
Industry: Oil and Gasoline
Products: Petrochemical
Website: www.conocophillips.com

General Information

ConocoPhillips (NYSE: COP) is an international energy corporation with its headquarters located in Houston, Texas. It was created through the merger of Conoco Inc. and the Phillips Petroleum Company on August 30, 2002. Headquarters are based in Houston, Texas in the United States, and offices are located worldwide. The headquarters of ConocoPhillips Canada are located in Calgary, Alberta in Canada. It is one of the six supermajor vertically integrated oil companies.

History

In 2005, the corporation began rebranding their (Union) 76 gas stations, prompting a petition campaign by fans hoping to save the historic 76 orange ball signage. On January 20, 2007, a Wall Street Journal article on the petition campaign included a statement from ConocoPhillips that it was changing course and would be saving several dozen orange and blue 76 Balls to give to museums, as well as fabricating about one hundred spherical 76-logo signs in the ConocoPhillips color scheme of red and blue, to be placed at select 76 stations.

On March of 2006, ConocoPhillips bought Burlington Resources .

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.

Environmental Record

On April 11, 2007, ConocoPhillips became the first U.S. oil company to join the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, an alliance of big business and environmental groups that in January sent a letter to President George W. Bush stating that mandatory emissions caps are needed to reduce the flow of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere. ConocoPhillips has said it will spend $150 million this year on the research and development of new energy sources and technologies— a 50 percent increase in spending from 2006.

A recent University of Massachusetts study has ranked ConocoPhillips third among U.S. corporate producers of air pollution. According to the researchers, ConocoPhillips facilities release more than eight million pounds of toxic chemicals annually into the air. The company has also been implicated in some of the United States' worst toxic waste dumps; the Center for Public Integrity has announced that United States Environmental Protection Agency documents link ConocoPhillips to 52 Superfund sites.

In 2003, ConocoPhillips was named as a defendant in a lawsuit brought by a Georgian environmental group called Green Alternative. The suit claimed that a number of foreign oil companies colluded with the Georgian government to induce authorities to approve a $3 billion pipeline without properly evaluating environmental impact.

In 2007, a number of environmental groups including the Sierra Club and the Prairie Rivers Network announced their support for ConocoPhillips' plan to expand its Wood River oil refinery. A spokesperson for the group said that, despite ConocoPhillips' history of environmental policy violations, she was optimistic that the corporation would comply with pollution laws as it expanded the refinery.