ConocoPhillips

ConocoPhillips is an American multinational company that explores for and produces oil and natural gas. Its headquarters are in Houston, Texas, in the Energy Corridor district.

The company operates in 15 countries. In 2019, its production came primarily from the United States (49%), followed by Australia (12%), Norway (10%), Qatar (6%), Canada (5%), Indonesia (4%), Malaysia (4%), Libya (3%), and China (3%). Within the U.S., production areas include Alaska, the Eagle Ford Group, the Permian Basin, the Bakken Formation, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Anadarko Basin. About one-third of its U.S. production is in Alaska, where it works in the Cook Inlet area, the Alpine oil field, and the Kuparuk and Prudhoe Bay fields on the North Slope.

As of December 31, 2023, the company reported proved reserves of 6,758 million barrels of oil equivalent. Of these reserves, 46% was petroleum, 34% was natural gas, 14% was natural gas liquids, and 6% was bitumen.

ConocoPhillips ranks 75th on the Fortune 500 (down from 156th in 2021). In the 2023 Forbes Global 2000, it was the 83rd-largest public company worldwide. Forbes also ranked it 207th for diversity among employers (2021), 125th among America’s best employers (2021), and 76th among Canada’s best employers (2021). In 2019, *The Guardian* listed ConocoPhillips as the 14th-highest corporate emitter of carbon emissions globally. The company is estimated to have been responsible for 0.91% of global industrial greenhouse gas emissions from 1988 to 2015.

**History**

**1875 to January 1993** The Continental Oil and Transportation Company (Conoco) was founded in Ogden, Utah, by Isaac Blake in 1875. It was reincorporated as part of Standard Oil in 1885 and became independent in 1913 after Standard Oil was dissolved by the U.S. Supreme Court. By 1929, it was a fully integrated oil company distributing coal, oil, kerosene, grease, and candles in the West. That year, Conoco merged with the Marland Oil Company, founded by E. W. Marland. Marland had earlier acquired Continental Oil Co.’s assets and, on June 26, 1899, changed its name to Continental Oil Co., moving its headquarters to Fargo, North Dakota. The merger gave Conoco Marland’s red bar-and-triangle logo, which it used until 1970, when the current red capsule logo was adopted. Conoco was based in Ponca City until 1949, when it moved to Houston.

**1998** In 1998, Conoco acquired an interest in 10.5 blocks in the Kashagan Field in the Caspian Sea off Kazakhstan through the North Caspian Sea Production Sharing Agreement. On November 26, 2012, ONGC Videsh agreed to buy ConocoPhillips’ 8.4% stake in the Kashagan oilfield for about $5 billion, in what was then its largest acquisition ever.

**2002** On August 30, 2002, Conoco Inc. and Phillips Petroleum Company (headquartered in Bartlesville, Oklahoma) merged to form ConocoPhillips. By January 2002, the merger teams had chosen Houston as the headquarters site. The merger combined the companies’ expertise, enabling development of megaprojects involving remote natural gas supplies. Oklahoma Governor Frank Keating called the move to Houston “regrettable.”

**September 2004 to January 2009** In September 2004, ConocoPhillips invested $2 billion in Lukoil. In March 2006, it acquired Wilhelmshavener Raffineriegesellschaft mbH in Germany and bought Burlington Resources for $35 billion in cash and stock. On May 10, 2006, former U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage was elected to the company’s board of directors.

**July 2011 to January 2017** On July 14, 2011, ConocoPhillips announced plans to split its upstream and downstream businesses into two separate public companies to maximize shareholder value. On May 1, 2012, the midstream, downstream, marketing, and chemical operations were spun off into a new company, Phillips 66, based in Houston. ConocoPhillips continued as an upstream exploration and production company. In April 2012, it sold its Trainer Refinery to Monroe Energy LLC, a Delta Air Lines subsidiary. In May 2012, the corporate spin-off of Phillips 66 was completed. That year, the company began divesting onshore and offshore assets in Nigeria, including a 17% stake in Brass LNG and a 47.5% stake in Oil Mining Lease 131, after more than 46 years of operations there. In January 2013, ConocoPhillips sold its Rocky Mountain assets to Denbury Resources for $1.05 billion. In July 2016, it agreed to sell a 35% stake in three Senegalese deepwater exploration blocks to Woodside Petroleum for about $350 million. In November 2016, the company announced it would move its headquarters to Energy Center Four by 2018.

**February 2017 to January 2021** In February 2017, Ecuador was ordered to pay $380 million to ConocoPhillips for unlawfully expropriating its oil investments. In March 2017, the company agreed to sell its Foster Creek Christina Lake Partnership interest and Western Canada Deep Basin Gas assets to Cenovus Energy for $13.3 billion. Combined with sales of U.S. natural gas fields, this reduced its proved oil and gas reserves by nearly 30%.