Brand History
MOBIL
Over the past 135 years ExxonMobil has evolved from a regional marketer of kerosene in the U.S. to one of the largest publicly traded petroleum and petrochemical enterprises in the world.
Today we operate in most of the world's countries and are best-known by our familiar brand names: Exxon, Esso and Mobil. We make the products that drive modern transportation, power cities, lubricate industry and provide petrochemical building blocks that lead to thousands of consumer goods.
Colonel Edwin Drake and Uncle Billy Smith drill the first successful oil well in Titusville, Pennsylvania. The colonel's discovery triggers an oil boom that parallels the gold rush of a decade earlier.
1859
Rockefeller and his partners create the Standard Oil Company (Ohio), which became the world's largest integrated oil refining company. The word Standard in the name was chosen to indicate a single high standard of quality.
1870
Standard Oil Co. purchases a three-quarters interest in Vacuum Oil Company for $200,000. As a lubricants pioneer, Vacuum Oil introduces a number of popular products, including the revolutionary Gargoyle 600-W Steam Cylinder Oil.
1879
Standard Oil lubricates Thomas Edison's first central generating system. Also in this year, Standard Oil Trust forms to include the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey (Jersey Standard) and the Standard Oil Company of New York (Socony).
1882
The Wright brothers, Wilbur and Orville, use both Jersey Standard fuel and Mobiloil (Vacuum) lubricants for their historic first flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.
1903
Following a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision, Standard Oil breaks up into 34 unrelated companies, including Jersey Standard, Socony and Vacuum Oil. The year also marks the first time Jersey Standard's sales of kerosene are surpassed by gasoline, a product that in the early days had often been discarded as a nuisance.
1911
Jersey Standard researchers produce rubbing alcohol, or isopropyl alcohol — the first commercial petrochemical.
1920
Embodying the phonetic rendition of the initials ‘S’ and ‘O’ in Standard Oil, Jersey Standard brings out a new blend of fuel under the trade name Esso.
1926
Amelia Earhart uses Mobiloil to protect Friendship when she makes her historic solo flight across the Atlantic. The previous year, Charles Lindbergh used Mobiloil in the Spirit of St. Louis on the first solo flight across the Atlantic.
1928
Jersey Standard researchers produce an artificial rubber, butyl. Today, butyl is used in the creation of tires, surgical tapes, protective coatings and more.
1937
Jersey Standard introduces Uniflo motor oil, the first multigrade motor oil recommended for both summer and winter use.
1952
Mobil celebrates 100 years since the founding of the Vacuum Oil Company in 1866 and changes its name to Mobil Oil Corporation. The company launches a wide-reaching identity program to emphasize the Mobil trade name.
1966
Mobil introduces a synthetic automotive engine lubricant — Mobil 1. Today, Mobil 1 is the world’s leading synthetic motor oil.
1974
Exxon celebrates 100 years since the formation of the Standard Oil Trust in 1882. In its first 100 years, the company evolved from a domestic refiner and distributor of kerosene to a large multinational corporation, involved at every level of oil and gas exploration, production, refining and marketing, and petrochemicals manufacturing.
1982
On November 30, 1999, Exxon and Mobil join to form Exxon Mobil Corporation. “This merger will enhance our ability to be an effective global competitor in a volatile world economy and in an industry that is more and more competitive,” said Lee Raymond and Lou Noto, chairmen and chief executive officers of Exxon and Mobil, respectively.
1999
Exxon Neftegas Limited (a subsidiary of Exxon Mobil Corporation) completes the drilling of the Z-11 well, the longest measured depth extended-reach drilling (ERD) well in the world. (Located on Sakhalin Island offshore eastern Russia, the record-setting Z-11 achieved a total measured depth of 37,016 feet [11,282 meters], or more than seven miles.)
2007
Exxon Mobil Corporation announced two major oil discoveries and a gas discovery in the deep-water Gulf of Mexico after drilling the company's first post-moratorium deep-water exploration well. This is one of the largest discoveries in the Gulf of Mexico in the last decade.
2011
ExxonMobil safely and successfully drills its first exploration well offshore Guyana. Subsequent exploratory activity will confirm a world-class resource discovery in excess of 8 billion oil-equivalent barrels.
2015
ExxonMobil doubles its Permian Basin resource to 6 billion barrels of oil equivalent through the acquisition of companies owned by the Bass family of Fort Worth, TX.
2017
In late 2019, ExxonMobil starts oil production from the Liza field offshore Guyana. This startup comes ahead of schedule and less than five years after the first discovery of hydrocarbons, well ahead of the industry average for deepwater developments.
2019
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, ExxonMobil maximizes the production of critical products such as isopropyl alcohol, which is used to make hand sanitizer, and polypropylene, which is used for protective masks, gowns and wipes. Additionally, the corporation reconfigures operations in Louisiana to produce medical-grade hand sanitizer for donation to COVID-19 response efforts.
2020
