Sunoco history

In 1886, its partners – Joseph Newton Pew, Philip Pisano, and Edward O. Emerson – decided to expand their gas business with a stake in the new oil discoveries in Ohio and Pennsylvania.

By 1901, the company was incorporated in New Jersey as Sun Company.

In 1902, the Sun Oil Refining Company was chartered in Texas, as it turned its interest to the new Spindletop field in Texas.

In 1916, the Sun Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company was established.

With a growing portfolio of oil fields and refineries, Sun opened its first service station in Ardmore, Pennsylvania in 1920.

On November 12, 1925, Sun Oil Company went public, making its debut on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) as: SUN.

Before the decade was over, Sun was in the oilfield equipment business with the 1929 formation of Sperry-Sun, a joint venture with Sperry Gyroscope.

Always striving to produce better products, Sun got into the mining business in 1941, forming the Cordero Mining Company in Nevada to supply mercury for Sunoco motor oils.

Sun expanded internationally following the war. Its first Canadian refinery was built in 1953 in Sarnia, Ontario, home to a burgeoning new petrochemical industry.

In 1956, Sunoco introduced "custom blending" pumps, an innovation that allowed customers of Sunoco service stations to choose from several octane ratings through a single pump.

In 1967, Sun established its Great Canadian Oil Sands Limited facility in northern Alberta, Canada, to access the estimated 300 billion barrels (48 km) of extractable oil in the Athabasca oil sands.

In 1968, Sun Oil merged with Tulsa, Oklahoma-based Sunray DX Oil Company, which refined and marketed gasoline under the DX brand in several midwestern states, and included several refineries.

Major restructuring reshaped the company in 1975, when it organized into 14 operating units, two property companies and a non-operating parent company.

With increased diversification, Sun Oil Company was renamed Sun Company in 1976.

In 1980, Sun acquired the United States oil and gas properties of Texas Pacific Oil Company, Inc., a subsidiary of The Seagram Company, Ltd., for US$2.3 billion—the second largest acquisition in United States history to that date.

In 1983, Sun Oil launched Sunoco ULTRA 94, the market's highest octane unleaded gasoline.

Then in 1988, Sun undertook a restructuring to segregate its domestic oil and gas exploration and production business and the focus the company on its refining and marketing business.

In 1994, Sunoco acquired the Philadelphia Chevron Oil refinery consolidating operations with its own adjacent which it had acquired with Atlantic.

Sun sold its remaining interest in Canada's Suncor Energy in 1995, but markets product from two refineries – one in Toledo, Ohio, and the other Sarnia, Ontario – in joint ventures.

In 1998, Sun Company, Inc. became Sunoco, Inc.