Sunday: 10 years after merger, ConocoPhillips to split
BY ROD WALTON World Staff Writer
Saturday, April 28, 2012
4/28/12 at 3:12 PM
ConocoPhillips has turned 180 degrees in 10 short years.
The Houston-based oil and gas giant, which decided that bigger was better when Phillips Petroleum Co. and Conoco Inc. merged in 2002, now believes that smaller is what investors want. The nation’s third-largest integrated energy firm will suddenly become known as a “pure play” independent when the refining and chemical side is spun off into a new company called Phillips 66.
“We’re ready to go,” Phillips 66 CEO-designate Greg Garland promised in a recent investors webcast.
Phillips 66 officially begins trading Tuesday on the New York Stock Exchange. ConocoPhillips will become the nation’s largest independent oil and gas producer, and Phillips 66 will be the second-biggest refiner.
Both moves could have tremendous impact, good or bad, on the Oklahoma communities of Bartlesville and Ponca City. Bartlesville is home to 3,500 shared services jobs for both companies, and Ponca City is home to what will become a Phillips 66 refinery employing at least 700 people.
Integrated meant that companies like ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips were active in all the “streams” of the oil and gas business, from the wells to the refineries to the gasoline pump. ConocoPhillips still owns the “brand” for stations like Conoco and Phillips 66 but licenses it out to qualifying franchise owners.
The new Phillips 66 will own the brand licensing beginning in May.
The separation of ConocoPhillips and Phillips 66 is the final achievement of CEO Jim Mulva’s eight-year reign atop the integrated company. Mulva helped oversee the 2002 merger as head of Phillips Petroleum and now walks offstage into retirement as the one company becomes two.
Read complete coverage in Sunday's World.
Associated Images:
The ConocoPhillips building houses office space for several businesses in Bartlesville. Tulsa World file
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