The story
Founding and early years
In April 1880, Jacob Lewis Englehart and 16 prominent oil refiners in London, Ontario, and Petrolia, Ontario, formed Imperial Oil in response to Standard Oil's growing dominance of the oil market. Englehart aimed to emulate John D. Rockefeller and merge the entire Canadian oil industry into one conglomerate. Although the majority of Ontario's top oil producers agreed to join in the enterprise, exceptions included John Henry Fairbank, who was then Canada's largest oil producer, and James Miller Williams, founder of the Canadian Oil Company. Englehart and the refiners established Imperial Oil as a joint-stock company with a capitalized value of $500,000. In addition to Englehart, the original shareholders included Frederick A. Fitzgerald, Isaac and Herman Waterman, William Spencer and his sons William and Charles, Thomas and Edward Hodgins, John Geary, Joseph Fallows, John Minhinnick, William English and John Walker. Together, the shareholders possessed twelve oil refineries and controlled 85% of the refining capacity in Canada. Fitzgerald and Englehart were the two largest stakeholders in the company and were named the president and vice president, respectively. Imperial Oil's charter noted that its goal was to "find, produce, refine and distribute petroleum and its products throughout Canada."
Despite its early successes, Imperial Oil struggled to make a profit and issue dividends in the early 1880s. The discovery of new oil fields in Pennsylvania and New York drove down the price of oil, and the creation of the Standard Oil Trust resulted in an increase of American oil imports into Canada. In a move to boost kerosene prices, Imperial closed down ten of the twelve refineries it had acquired through the merger, leaving only the Silver Star refinery in Petrolia and the Victor works in London. In 1883, the Victor works was struck by lightning and burned to the ground, and under Englehart's direction, the company concentrated its refining efforts at Petrolia.
Herman Frasch and the sulphur dilemma
In 1884, Imperial Oil purchased the exclusive use of Herman Frasch's fractional distillation patent, which was more efficient at separating crude oil into usable products. Imperial initially offered Frasch $10,000 and Imperial Oil stock, but he persuaded the company to offer him a salary that matched Fitzgerald's and a seat on the Board of Directors. Frasch had taken the position primarily to supervise the installation of his refining method at the Silver Star refinery and resigned in February 1885 once the work was complete. Frasch then joined John Minhinnick in forming a separate venture called the Empire Oil Company. The pair purchased an idle refinery in London, and Frasch began experimenting on a way to remove the sulphur content in the oil pumped at Lambton County. The high sulphur content in Canadian oil placed it at a disadvantage compared to the oil mined at Pennsylvania due to its "distinctive odour" when burned. Canadians called the product "skunk oil". Between 1885 and 1887, Frasch discovered that mixing copper oxide with the oil during the distilling process would remove the sulphur content and odour from the refined product.
By this time, Standard Oil had also become interested in the desulphurization process after moving production to oil fields in Ohio that had a similar sulphur content to Lambton County. In 1886, Standard Oil persuaded Frasch to return to the United States and join their company by offering "a salary higher than that of any other scientist in the country" and an exchange of his shares in the Empire Oil Company for an equivalent amount in Standard Oil. After returning to the United States, Frasch perfected his desulphurization strategy, and Standard Oil held a monopoly on the process until 1905.
The 1890s and the Standard Oil buyout
Despite rising revenue and growth in the 1890s, Imperial Oil faced continuing challenges in its markets, primarily from Standard Oil, which operated a series of subsidiary companies across Canada. Although Imperial dominated the Western Canadian market, the company could not establish a strong foothold in the Maritimes or Quebec as Standard supplied these regions through long-term contracts with local companies. While the Conservative Party's National Policy had stopped Standard Oil from fully entering the Canadian market, the economic policy came under attack by Standard Oil lobbyists and Canadian consumers, who asked for a cheaper and higher quality product. In 1893, Ottawa reduced import duties on refined oil products from 7.2 cents to 6 cents per wine gallon, and in 1896, Wilfrid Laurier's government reduced the tariff again to 5 cents. Additionally, Laurier removed restrictions on tank cars and tank steamers, allowing foreign companies to bulk ship oil into Canada by rail or sea. Before, foreign companies had to repackage their product into oil barrels before entering Canada, adding roughly five cents in shipping and handling charges to each gallon of imported oil.
In 1895, Imperial Oil's Board of Directors began negotiations to sell the company to the Colonial Development Corporation, a British company. After three years, the deal collapsed, and the Board of Directors instead chose to sell the company to Standard Oil. The agreement specified that Standard Oil would acquire 75% of Imperial Oil's shares, Imperial Oil would acquire all of Standard Oil's Canadian subsidiary companies, Imperial's capitalization would be increased to $1 million, and Imperial shareholders would receive a dividend of $93,000. Following the deal, Imperial Oil shut down the Silver Star refinery in Petrolia and moved its refining operations to Sarnia, Ontario.
Later years
In a landmark 1911 anti-trust case, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered Standard Oil to break up into 34 separate companies. Ownership of Imperial Oil, as well Standard Oil's other subsidiaries outside the U.S., were all transferred to only one of those 34 successor firms, Jersey Standard (later renamed Exxon).
Imperial Oil discovered the Leduc Woodbend Devonian oil reef in 1947, marking the beginning of the contemporary period in Canadian oil and gas development. Drilling began on the landmark discovery well Leduc No. 1 on November 20, 1946.
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In 1989, Imperial Oil acquired Texaco's Canadian operations.
When Exxon and Mobil merged in 1999 to form ExxonMobil, the combined company continued to maintain Mobil's Canadian operations as a separate subsidiary, independent of Imperial Oil.
Although ExxonMobil and Imperial are legally separate companies they have a very unique relationship. ExxonMobil provides, IT, procurement, payroll and technical services to Imperial through several service agreements. Imperial in the early 2000s was the operator of ExxonMobil Canada's assets in Canada. ExxonMobil also provides financing to Imperial. Many of the CEOs and board members of Imperial over the years were employees of ExxonMobil. Both companies also subcontract employees to each other. Despite this, the two companies have a clear policy of "corporate separateness" and are individually listed on the stock exchange. Ownership of Imperial stock does not reflect ownership of ExxonMobil but ownership of ExxonMobil stock represents ownership of the 69.6% share of Imperial stock ExxonMobil has.
Film and television
From the 1934-35 season through the 1975-76 season, Imperial Oil was a sponsor of the CBC Television program Hockey Night in Canada for both radio and television broadcasts.
Esso, which had three stars on their signs, sponsored Hockey Night in Canada's three stars of the game.
In the same era, the company was also involved in film production, providing funding for independent documentary films. Glenbow Museum in Calgary holds a large collection of Imperial Oil's film inventory.
From Wikipedia’s article on Imperial Oil, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.7