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[duxter]

In February 1899, Charles Cheers Wakefield took what was perhaps the greatest risk of his working life: he resigned from the Vacuum Oil Company over a disagreement with the management regarding Vacuum Oil's foray into the railroad lubricants sector, and set himself up as competition. He could not have guessed that the firm he left behind would go on to become Mobil Oil.

 

Wakefield rented three small rooms on the third floor of 27 Cannon Street in the heart of London, and it was there, on Thursday 9 March 1899, that the firm of C.C.Wakefield & Co opened its doors for the first time. Little did he know then, that his fledgling company – the nine-man, three-room C.C.Wakefield & Co – would grow into one of the largest, most innovative and highly respected lubricants businesses in the world – CASTROL....

 

In 1909, the company began production of a new automotive lubricant named "Castrol" (a contraction of castor oil, from which it was made). The company developed specific oil applications for various applications of the new internal combustion engine, including cars, motorcycles, and aircraft.

 

In 1966, Castrol was acquired by British oil company Burmah, which was renamed Burmah-Castrol. In 2000, Burmah-Castrol was acquired by the then BP Amoco plc (now renamed BP plc). Castrol branded lubricants continue to be sold around the world and are, in many countries, market leaders.

 

Esso is an international trade name for Exxon Mobil Corporation and its related companies. Pronounced S-O, it is derived from the name of the pre-1911 Standard Oil Company, and as such became the focus of much litigation and regulatory restriction in the United States. In 1973, it was largely replaced in the U.S. by the Exxon brand, while Esso remained widely used elsewhere. In most of the world, the Esso brand and the Mobil brand are the primary brand names of ExxonMobil, with the Exxon brand name still in use only in parts of the United States.

 

 

An Esso station in Stabekk, Norway.

An Esso gas station sign in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.In 1911, Standard Oil was broken up into seven regional companies, each with the rights to the brand "Standard" in certain states (plus a number of other companies that had no territorial rights). Standard Oil of New Jersey ("Jersey Standard") had the rights in that state, plus in Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and the District of Columbia. By 1941, it had also acquired the rights in Pennsylvania, Delaware, Arkansas, Tennessee, and Louisiana. In those states, it marketed its products under the brand "Esso", the phonetic pronunciation of the letters "S" and "O". It also used the Esso brand in New York and the six New England states, where the Standard Oil Company of New York (Mobil) had the rights, but did not object to the New Jersey company's use of the trademark (the two companies did not merge until 1998). However, in the other states, the other Standard Oil companies objected and forced Jersey Standard to use other brand names. In most states the company used the trademark "Enco", and in a few "Humble". The other Standard companies likewise were "Standard" or some variant on that in their home states, and another brand name in other states.

 

This situation was confusing to travelers. In 1972, Standard Oil of New Jersey renamed itself as the Exxon Corporation, and adopted that trademark throughout the country. It however maintained the rights to "Standard" and "Esso" in the states where it held those rights, by a token effort, by selling "Esso Diesel" in those states at stations that sell diesel fuel, thus preventing the trademark from being declared abandoned.

 

Sursa: Wikipedia.

 

You could say Aral started in a test tube. In the 1920s Rudolf Weller, chief engineer, and Walter Oswald, chief chemist of the German company Benzol-Verband, abbreviated BV, combined benzene and gasoline in the lab to create a new kind of motor fuel.

 

Oswald named the new product himself, taking the “Ar” from aromatic (benzene’s chemical grouping) and the “al” from aliphatic (gasoline’s group). “Aral.”

 

BV had been founded in 1898 as Westdeutsche Benzol-Verkaufs-Vereinigung specifically to find new ways of marketing and selling benzene, a byproduct from the production of coke. 26 years later, Oswald’s invention created a market for benzene that would leave most of its other uses in the dust.

 

By 1937, the company had 9,000 service stations and was market leader with a market share of about 25 %. Aral was a name synonymous in Germany with quality fuel for automobiles. Building on this success, 1939 BV scientists announced a new innovation. They had developed the first completely synthetic, multi-grade motor oil. It went on sale as Aral Kowal.

 

Sursa www.bp.com

Edited January 10, 2008 by duxter