Craig Thompson
Published: 1951
Total Pages: 118
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The Gulf Oil Corporation was an expansion of the J. M. Guffey Petroleum Company, which was organized in May 1901, and which acquired the interests of Anthony F. Lucas and John A. Galey in the Spindletop Oilfield. Gulf's organization was characterized by integration from production of crude to retailing of refinery products. In 1929 it was decided to expand the retail business, which had been concentrated in the south and east, into Ohio, Illinois, and Michigan. At the beginning of the Great Depression a $90 million expansion program was undertaken, which included the building of refineries in Cincinnati, Toledo, and Pittsburgh, the construction of an 800-mile pipeline from Oklahoma to Ohio, and the acquisition of more than 400 marketing facilities. Increasing its capital expenditures in the 1950s, Gulf joined with B. F. Goodrich Company to form a new company, Gulf-Goodrich Chemicals, Incorporated, through which Gulf maintained an important position in the manufacture of synthetic rubber from petroleum-derived feedstocks. Gulf also extended its exploration and production operations in the 1950s, including an extensive program for exploration of underwater leases in the Gulf of Mexico off Louisiana, which became one of the company's leading domestic producing areas. This book presents a brief overview of the company's operations during the first half of the twentieth-century.
