Conoco began as the Continental Oil and Transportation Co., one of the first petroleum marketers in the West, in 1875.
Brothers Frank and L.E. Phillips founded Phillips Petroleum Company, headquartered in Bartlesville, OK in 1917.
The 76 brand, long familiar in the western U.S., was created by Union Oil Company of California (later Unocal) in 1932.
During World War II, Phillips Petroleum and Conoco made high-octane aviation fuel possible, boosting the power of Allied airplanes.
Phillips invented polyethylene plastics and entered the plastics business. It also began producing a polyolefin plastic trademarked as Marlex. Wham-O Manufacturing used Marlex in the production of the hula hoop.
In 1981, DuPont acquired Conoco after a heated takeover battle, and Conoco became a wholly owned DuPont subsidiary. It was the largest merger in U.S. history at that time. Phillips Petroleum fended off multiple takeover attempts during the 80s as well.
Conoco and Phillips Petroleum officially merged in 2002 to become ConocoPhillips, creating the sixth largest publicly traded oil company in the world and the third largest in the U.S.
ConocoPhillips spun off its midstream and downstream businesses to create a publicly traded company called Phillips 66 that began trading under the symbol PSX on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on May 1, 2012.
Phillips 66 has 14,000 employees worldwide committed to safety and operating excellence. In 2016, Phillips 66 moved into its new world headquarters in Houston and completed a multi-billion dollar midstream and export project on the Texas Gulf Coast.
