Exxon Mobil’s decision to move its headquarters to Houston is perhaps the capstone to the corporation’s deep roots and long history in the region.
That history can be traced back to Spindletop, the gusher that kicked off the first Texas oil rush in 1901 and launched the Texas oil industry. The Spindletop discovery attracted to Houston the nine original founders of the Humble Oil & Refining Co. — the predecessor company to Exxon Mobil.
Ross S. Sterling, a largely uneducated farm hand from Anahuac, founded the first Humble Oil Co. in 1911, though the Humble Oil & Refining Co. that came to dominate U.S. production wasn't chartered until six years later on June 21, 1917.
The consolidated company built the Baytown refinery that is still operated by Exxon and has become one of the nation's largest refineries.
In 1919, Standard Oil of New Jersey, one of companies spun off after the breakup of John D. Rockefellers Standard Oil monopoly, acquired a 50-percent interest in Humble Oil & Refining. Decades later, Standard Oil of New Jersey would be renamed Exxon.
Humble opened its downtown Houston headquarters in 1921. Six years later, it discovered the Sugarland oil field, the first major U.S. find using seismography. The big Friendswood oil field discovery came in 1937.
In 1963, it relocated to a newly built 44-story tower at 800 Bell. While maintaining that central presence, the company expanded into a midcentury complex near Greenway Plaza (and later built a $25 million addition in 2004). It was an early and integral part of the Greenspoint master-planned business complex developed in the late 1970s by then-subsidiary Friendswood Development Co.
In 1972, the Humble brand, as well as other Standard Oil of New Jersey brands, vanished when the company took the Exxon name.
Exxon Chemical campus, set between Memorial Drive and the Katy Freeway, opened in 1979, helping establish west Houston's Energy Corridor. In 1989, Exxon moved its headquarters from New York to Irving to save money.
Exxon merged with Mobil in 1999.
In 2008, Exxon Mobil purchased 385 acres on the northern edge of what would become City Place, where it built a massive corporate campus to consolidate the bulk of its Houston operations, as well as other divisions. By October 2015, 20 low-rise buildings totaling 3 million square feet were built around a central three-acre common area, helping to establish the north Houston region as a second energy corridor.
In 2017, Exxon Mobil moved the headquarters of its shale drilling. Exxon has about 15,000 employees in the Houston area, according to 2021 Houston Chronicle survey.
Exxon signed a lease in 2013 for 478,000 square-feet of office space across two towers to be developed by a subsidiary of Howard Hughes in The Woodlands, with plans to move into those towers in early 2016. By late 2021, Exxon vacated its office space in The Woodlands to consolidate its operations Spring.
Includes reporting from Katherine Feser and Marissa Luck.
amanda.drane@chron.com
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/article/Exxon-Mobil-has-deep-roots-in-Houston-area-16820661.php
2022-02-01 10:04:22Z
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