Sunoco

Type: Public (NYSE: SUN)
Founded: 1886 (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA)
Headquarters: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
Key people: Lynn Elsenhans, CEO & Chairman
Industry: Retail
Products: Petrochemical
Website: www.sunocoinc.com

General Information

Sunoco (NYSE: SUN) is an American petroleum and petrochemical manufacturer headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, formerly known as Sun Company Inc. (1886-1920 and 1976-1998) and Sun Oil Co. (1920-1976).In Canada, Sunoco is operated by Suncor Energy, a separate Canadian entity. Sunoco is a Fortune 100 Company. It is also the biggest company based in Philadelphia and the 2nd biggest in Pennsylvania behind AmerisourceBergen.

History

1800s to 1900s: founding and growth

The integrated oil company now known as Sunoco began as The Peoples Natural Gas Company in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In 1886, its partners—Joseph Newton Pew, Philip Pisano (see The Pew Charitable Trusts) and Edward O. Emerson—decided to expand their gas business with a stake in the new oil discoveries in Ohio and Pennsylvania. Four years later, the growing enterprise became the Sun Oil Company of Ohio. Sun Oil diversified quickly, active in production and distribution of oil as well as processing and marketing refined products. By 1901, the company was incorporated in New Jersey as Sun Company and turned its interest to the new Spindletop field in Texas. Pew's sons, J. Howard Pew and Joseph N. Pew, Jr. would take over the company after their father's death.With a growing portfolio of oil fields and refineries in hand, Sun opened its first service station in Ardmore, Pennsylvania in 1920. The name changed back to Sun Oil Company in 1922 and, in 1925, Sun became a publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange. Following World War II, Sun expanded internationally. Its first Canadian refinery was built in 1953 in Sarnia, Ontario, home to a burgeoning new petrochemical industry. Sun established a facility at Venezuela's Lake Maracaibo in 1957, which produced over a billion barrels (160,000,000 m³) before the operation was nationalized in 1975.