Standard oil

INTRODUCTION
Standard Oil was a predominant American integrated oil producing, transporting, refining, and marketing company. Established in 1870 as an Ohio corporation, it was the largest oil refiner in the world and operated as a major company trust and was one of the world's first and largest multinational corporations until it was broken up by the United States Supreme Court in 1911. JohnD. Rockefeller was a founder, chairman and major shareholder, and the company made him a billionaire and eventually the richest man in history.

STANDARD OIL TRUST
After a long series of judgments(reasons), in 1911 the Supreme Court decreed the fragmentation of Standard Oil in 34 independent companies but that continued being property of Rockefeller and of the rest of the shareholders ofStandard Oil. The descendants from these companies shape the principal core(nucleus) of the petroleum American industry at present:
The Standard has as its only competitors in the refining business about seventy-five small refineries, whose total consumption of crude oil is less than that of a single one of the Standard, to wit, the Bayonne refinery, and less than one-fifth of the Standard's totalconsumption. Over fifteen of these competitors are dependent for their supply of crude oil upon the Standard's pipe lines, and are so restricted by this dependence as to be capable of little effective competition or growth. In the pipe-line business of the eastern and mid-continent fields it has up to the present but one competitor of any significance - the Pure Oil Company - and that competitor'spipe-line business is not more than one-twentieth of that of the Standard.
History of form of organization. Starting with the partnership of Rockefeller, Andrews & Flagler, formed in 1867, in 1870 these interests took the corporate form of the Standard Oil Company of Ohio, with a capitalization of $1,-000,000. At that time they controlled not over 10 per cent of the refining business of thecountry. Within ten years from that date the process of combination under these interests had been so rapid that they admittedly controlled from 90 to 95 per cent of this branch of the oil industry, and their control of the pipe-line business had increased with equal rapidity. This commanding position having been gained, in 1882 they concentrated their holdings under the Standard Oil Trust, whichincluded the entire stock of fourteen companies and a majority interest in twenty-six additional concerns. The capitalization of the trust was $70,000,000 and the appraised valuation of its property over $55,000,000. Nine individuals, acting as trustees of the trust, owned together on that date more than $46,000,000 out of the $70,-000,000 of the trust certificates issued.
In 1892, as a result ofa legal attack on this form of organization, the trustees announced that the trust would be dissolved, and a process of so-called dissolution took place. This in no way, however, affected the original control of the aforesaid individuals over the entire concern, because the stocks of each of the various subsidiary corporations were not returned to their original holders, but were allotted to theholders of trust certificates on a pro rata basis, with the result that the trustees, who had previously held the majority of the trust certificates, now held a majority interest in each one of the constituent companies.
In 1898 contempt proceedings were started against the Standard Oil Company of Ohio on the ground that it had not withdrawn from the trust. Thereupon, pending the decision,these interests selected the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey as a holding corporation for the constituent Standard companies, and increased its common stock to $100,000,000 for that purpose. This company then gave its own stock in exchange for the stocks of such companies. This change, like the previous one of 1892, as was its obvious purpose, left the monopoly power of the Standard capitalists...