Getty Oil was an American oil marketing company with its origins as part of the large integrated oil company founded by J. Paul Getty.

History

J. Paul Getty incorporated Getty Oil in 1942. He had previously worked in the oil fields of Oklahoma along with his father George Getty. When George died, he left J. Paul with $500,000 and a projection that he would destroy the family business. Starting in 1949, J. Paul Getty negotiated a 30-year old concession in the neutral zone between

Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the A ...

and

Kuwait Kuwait (; ar, الكويت ', or ), officially the State of Kuwait ( ar, دولة الكويت '), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated in the northern edge of Eastern Arabia at the tip of the Persian Gulf, bordering Iraq to the nort ...

Gordon Getty Gordon Peter Getty (born December 20, 1933) is an American businessman and classical music composer, the fourth child of oil tycoon J. Paul Getty. His mother, Ann Rork, was his father's fourth wife. When his father died in 1976, Gordon assumed ...

and his family inherited a 40% interest in the company when J. Paul Getty died in 1976. In 1984, after entering into a binding agreement to sell Getty and its 2.3-billion-barrel stockpile of proven oil reserves to Pennzoil, Gordon Getty struck a dramatic deal to sell the company to

Texaco Texaco, Inc. ("The Texas Company") is an American oil brand owned and operated by Chevron Corporation. Its flagship product is its fuel "Texaco with Techron". It also owned the Havoline motor oil brand. Texaco was an independent company unt ...

. On November 19, 1985, in the case of '' Texaco, Inc. v. Pennzoil, Co.'', Pennzoil won a US$10.53 billion verdict against Texaco in the largest civil verdict in U.S. history as a result of the violation of the binding agreement. Following extension litigation seeking to overturn the verdict, Texaco filed for bankruptcy, after which Pennzoil agreed to settle the case for $3 billion. While the reserves were sold, only some of the refineries changed hands, and Getty continued to exist as a downstream entity. Getty gas stations in the Northeast were sold off as a condition of the buyout. The company became known as Getty Petroleum Marketing Inc. Getty Petroleum Marketing was sold to Lukoil in 2000, and Lukoil sold it to Cambridge Securities LLC in February 2011. Getty Petroleum filed for bankruptcy protection (Chapter 11) on December 5, 2011. At one point, Getty Oil owned a majority stake of

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). Th ...

, before Getty's purchase by

which then sold ESPN to ABC in 1984.

References

External links

Getty's Official Site
{{Authority control Defunct oil companies of the United States Automotive fuel retailers Gas stations in the United States Convenience stores of the United States Companies based in New York (state) Companies based in Tulsa, Oklahoma Getty family Lukoil Texaco Companies that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2011 Retail companies established in 1942 Retail companies disestablished in 2012 Energy companies established in 1942 Energy companies disestablished in 2012 Non-renewable resource companies established in 1942 1984 mergers and acquisitions

History

See also

References

External links