Creole Petroleum Corporation

The Creole Syndicate in March 1928 was controlled by Naphen & Co, Blair & Co and their associates, with large blocks of stocks held in Europe. It owned 1,400,000 hectares of oil concessions in Venezuela and from its Lake Maracaibo properties, which were operated by the Venezuela Gulf Oil Co. under a contract signed in 1924, produced upward of 300,000bbl per month. It was developing the wholly-owned Rio Palmar field on its own account.

The Standard Oil Company of Venezuela had drilled 25 wildcats in the Maracaibo Basin before 1928.

The Creole Syndicate stockholders on March 16, 1928 voted to increase capital from 2,500,000 to 6,000,000 shares and to allow the friendly takeover of 51%

of the stock by Standard Oil of New Jersey, in exchange for $8 million in cash for working capital and all Standard properties in Venezuela (directly owned or indirectly through the Standard Oil Co. of Venezuela and the American British Oil Co. subsidiaries), to wit: 780,000 hectares of concessions in Western and 400,000 hectares in Eastern Venezuela districts and contracts in place with British Controlled Oilfields, Ltd., Central Area Exploration Co., Maracaibo Oil Exploration Co. and others. Concurrently Creole acquired all stock of Venezuela International Corp., owner of 1,280,000 hectares of exploration concessions. The name of the company was changed to Creole Petroleum Corp. Gulf Oil was squeezed out as distributor of Creole's production and Jersey in 1929 shipped the 20,000bpd principally to its Bayonne and Baltimore refineries. Gulf Oil however continued to operate Creole's Lake Maracaibo fields until at least 1950.

Standard Oil of New Jersey over time increased its stake in the company to gain more complete control. In November 1930 1,000,000 new shares were issued at $4.25 for additional working capital. On April 27, 1931 a unitization agreement became effective in the Eastern oil districts, whereby the several oil companies coordinated to avoid the cut-throat competition and infrastructure duplication that had years ago plagued the industry in the Mexican Golden Lane fields. On May 28, 1932 Standard completed the reorganization which involved the transfer of all assets to the Standard Oil Co. of Venezuela, which acted as the wholly-owned operating-subsidiary of Creole Petroleum.

Nelson Rockefeller served on the Creole board from 1935 to 1940.

In 1933 the no-par common stock was changed to $5 par. As of January 1955, Standard Oil of New Jersey owned 94.5% of Creole common stock. On May 20, 1955, the 25,865,310 shares where split 3-for-1 into 77,595,930 shares (a 200% stock dividend) and authorized capital was increased to 90,000,000 shares. In 1955 the old stock had reached a high of $151 on the American Stock Exchange, a market capitalization of $3.906 billion, of which some $215 million was not sitting in the Standard Oil treasury.