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Oil Companies. There are at least half a hundred oil companies large enough to be definite factors in the industry, plus a great many more independents. Thus the corridors of the Stevens Hotel are this week well filled with many representatives of many corporations. There is R. H. Holmes's Texas Corp., largest of all independents, which last year showed a net income of $45,000,000 and whose Texaco gasoline is the only gasoline sold in all 48 states. There is K. R. Kingsbury's Standard Oil of California, largest U. S. producer of crude petroleum, and Edward G. Seubert's Standard of Indiana, largest U. S. producer of gasoline. William Larimer Mellon's Gulf Oil Corp., 90% controlled by the Mellon family, is interesting as the potential nucleus of a giant holding company. Herbert L. Pratt's Standard of New York (last year chief Deterding opponent in Russia, now chiefly affected by Sir Henri's invasion) was still linked with George P. Whaley's Vacuum Oil in an old and endless merger rumor. There is unique Henry L. Doherty Cities Service Company, with its Greek Delta trademark and a 1928 production of nearly 20,000,000 barrels of crude oil plus the sale of nearly a billion and a half kilowatts of electric power. There is Sinclair Consolidated and Prairie Oil, still generally supposed to be contemplating merger activities.
Greatest of all U. S. companies, however, is Walter Clark Teagle's Standard Oil of New Jersey, which has never passed a dividend since its incorporation in 1882. Last year its gross revenue totaled $1,302,779,090, its net income $108,485,700. In 1928 the company produced between 9% and 10% of the total U. S. output of crude petroleum, production being about equally-divided between U. S. and foreign properties. The company has a half interest (with General Motors) in Ethyl Gasoline Corp. In September 1927, Standard of New Jersey and I. G. Farbenindustrie (German Dye Trust) concluded a joint patent and development agreement on the production of gasoline, by a hydrogenation process, from crude oils with a high asphalt or sulphur content. A closer contact with I. G. Farbenindustrie was made in April, 1929, when President Teagle became a director of a U. S. subsidiary formed by the German Trust (TIME, May 6). Mr. Teagle at this time denied that Standard of New Jersey owned stock in the German subsidiary, or that the company contemplated any expansion into the general chemical field. Important current activity is Standard of New Jersey's prospective reunion with Anglo-American Oil Co., Ltd., England's largest distributor of petroleum products. This company was split off from Standard of New Jersey when the old trust was dissolved in 1911-12, and the reunion (which appears more than likely) will be first instance of the oil Humpty Dumpty being put together again.