Tesoro Corporation, known briefly as Andeavor, was a Fortune 100 and a Fortune Global 500 company headquartered in San Antonio, Texas, with 2017 annual revenues of $35 billion, and over 14,000 employees worldwide. Based on 2017 revenue, the company ranked No. 90 in the 2018

Fortune 500 The ''Fortune'' 500 is an annual list compiled and published by ''Fortune'' magazine that ranks 500 of the largest United States corporations by total revenue for their respective fiscal years. The list includes publicly held companies, along ...

list of the largest United States corporations by total revenue. Tesoro was an independent refiner and marketer of

petroleum product Petroleum products are materials derived from crude oil (petroleum) as it is processed in oil refineries. Unlike petrochemicals, which are a collection of well-defined usually pure organic compounds, petroleum products are complex mixtures. The m ...

s, operating ten

refineries A refinery is a production facility composed of a group of chemical engineering unit processes and unit operations refining certain materials or converting raw material into products of value. Types of refineries Different types of refineries ar ...

in the Western United States with a combined rated crude oil capacity of approximately per day. Tesoro's retail-marketing system included approx. 3,000 branded retail gas stations, of which more than 595 were company-operated under its own Tesoro

brandname A brand is a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that distinguishes one seller's good or service from those of other sellers. Brands are used in business, marketing, and advertising for recognition and, importantly, to create an ...

, as well as Shell,

ExxonMobil ExxonMobil Corporation (commonly shortened to Exxon) is an American multinational oil and gas corporation headquartered in Irving, Texas. It is the largest direct descendant of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil, and was formed on November 30, ...

ARCO ARCO ( ) is a brand of gasoline stations currently owned by Marathon Petroleum after BP sold its rights. BP commercializes the brand in Northern California, Oregon and Washington, while Marathon has rights for the rest of the United States an ...

, and

USA Gasoline U Save Automatic (also known as USA Gasoline or USA Petroleum) is an American oil company which operates in the United States. It was founded as Skypower Gasoline by Peter Moller and his sons Poul, Finn and John and changed the name to USA Gasolin ...

brands. Tesoro, known at the time as Andeavor, was acquired by

Marathon Petroleum Marathon Petroleum Corporation is an American petroleum refining, marketing, and transportation company headquartered in Findlay, Ohio. The company was a wholly owned subsidiary of Marathon Oil until a corporate spin-off in 2011. Following it ...

on October 1, 2018.

History

Tesoro Corporation headquarters, San Antonio

Tesoro was founded in 1968 by Dr. Robert V. West Jr, and was primarily engaged in petroleum exploration and production. '' Tesoro'' is the word for ''treasure'' (or ''treasury'') in Italian and Spanish. In 1969, Tesoro began operating its first refinery, near Kenai, Alaska. Tesoro became the first Fortune 500 company to be headquartered in San Antonio, Texas. Beginning in the late 1990s, Tesoro grew through a series of

acquisitions Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are business transactions in which the ownership of companies, other business organizations, or their operating units are transferred to or consolidated with another company or business organization. As an aspect ...

and initiatives that created Tesoro Corporation, the company focusing on a single core business: petroleum refining, and marketing and distribution. The first segment involved the operation of six petroleum refineries situated in California, Alaska, Washington, Hawaii, North Dakota, and Utah. For its marketing and distribution segment, Tesoro sells refined gas and fuel products in both bulk and wholesale markets. Acquisitions expanded refining capacity from to approximately . Prior to its acquisition by

in 2018, Tesoro was the third-largest independent petroleum refining and marketing company in the United States. The merger between the two companies created the largest American refiner by capacity and the fifth in the world. Milestones in the company's history are: * 1998: acquires second refinery (after

Nikiski Nikiski is a census-designated place (CDP) in Kenai Peninsula Borough, Alaska, United States. The population was 4,456 at the 2020 census, down from 4,493 in 2010. Geography Nikiski is located at (60.707891, -151.262646) on the west side of the ...

) in Kapolei, Hawaii along with petroleum terminals and approximately 30 retail stations in Hawaii from BHP Americas - also acquires the former Shell refinery at

Anacortes Anacortes ( ) is a city in Skagit County, Washington, United States. The name "Anacortes" is an adaptation of the name of Anne Curtis Bowman, who was the wife of early Fidalgo Island settler Amos Bowman.Washington; * 1999: sold exploration and production operations; * 2001: purchased refineries in Mandan, North Dakota, and Salt Lake City, Utah from BP Amoco; * 2002: acquired

Golden Eagle Refinery The Martinez Refinery, also known as the Golden Eagle refinery, is located in the San Francisco Bay Area in an unincorporated area known as Avon, east of Martinez, California. It refines oil into gasoline and other petroleum based products. Previ ...

in Martinez, California from Ultramar ( Valero); * 2003: sold Tesoro Marine Services to

Martin Midstream Martin may refer to: Places * Martin City (disambiguation) * Martin County (disambiguation) * Martin Township (disambiguation) Antarctica * Martin Peninsula, Marie Byrd Land * Port Martin, Adelie Land * Point Martin, South Orkney Islands Austral ...

: Tesoro Marine Services were operating fueling and supply terminals servicing US Gulf Coast oil and gas exploration - also made a series of refinery acquisitions that boosted the company's capacity output and positioned it for future expansion in key growth markets throughout the Western United States; * 2005: largest capital expansion program in the corporation's history and record earnings; * 2007: announcement of purchase of Shell's refinery at Los Angeles refinery and approximately 250 Southern California retail stations; * 2007: Tesoro acquires

; * 2009: Tesoro employees move into a newly completed corporate campus in July. * 2011: Tesoro forms Tesoro Logistics LP (TLLP) as a master limited partnership; * 2011: Tesoro acquires 250

(Thrifty Style Stations) and Thrifty Stations in Southern California; * 2012: Tesoro changes the 250 ARCO (Thrifty Style Stations) and Thrifty Stations in Southern California to USA Gasoline; * 2013: Tesoro purchases the

Carson Carson may refer to: People *Carson (surname), people with the surname *Carson (given name), people with the given name Places ;In the United States * Carson, California, a city * Carson Township, Fayette County, Illinois *Carson, Iowa, a city * ...

refinery and the ARCO brand from BP; * 2013: Tesoro sells its Kapolei refinery to Par Petroleum (now Par Pacific Holdings). * 2016 Tesoro purchased Dakota Prairie Refining in Dickinson, North Dakota from WBI Energy. Construction of the refinery was completed in the spring of 2015. * 2016: Tesoro Corp has agreed to buy Western Refining for $4.1 billion. * 2016/17: Par Pacific Inc. rebrands its Tesoro and 76 gas stations as Hele. * Andeavor logo

2017: Tesoro announces that it will be changing its name to Andeavor following its acquisition of Western Refining. On August 1, 2017, the company changed its ticker symbol to "ANDV" from "TSO". *2018: Andeavor announces that they have entered into a definitive merger agreement with

under which Marathon Petroleum will acquire all of Andeavor's outstanding shares. The merger was closed on October 1.

Media controversy

Environmental record

Having taken over BP installations, researchers at the Political Economy Research Institute identified Tesoro as being the 24th-largest corporate producer of

air pollution in the United States Air pollution is the introduction of chemicals, particulate matter, or biological materials into the atmosphere, causing harm or discomfort to humans or other living organisms, or damaging ecosystems. Air pollution can cause health problems inc ...

, releasing roughly of toxic chemicals annually. Major pollutants emitted annually by the corporation include more than of

sulfuric acid Sulfuric acid (American spelling and the preferred IUPAC name) or sulphuric acid ( Commonwealth spelling), known in antiquity as oil of vitriol, is a mineral acid composed of the elements sulfur, oxygen and hydrogen, with the molecular formu ...

. following which the

Environmental Protection Agency A biophysical environment is a biotic and abiotic surrounding of an organism or population, and consequently includes the factors that have an influence in their survival, development, and evolution. A biophysical environment can vary in scale f ...

named Tesoro a potentially responsible party for at least four

superfund Superfund is a United States federal environmental remediation program established by the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA). The program is administered by the United States Environmental Pro ...

toxic waste sites. Tesoro has settled and/or closed each of the superfund sites for which it has been named as one of many responsible parties. Tesoro was listed as a ''de minimis'' contributor to a superfund site in

Abbeville, LA Abbeville is a city in, and the parish seat of, Vermilion Parish, Louisiana, United States, west of New Orleans and southwest of Baton Rouge. The population was 12,257 at the 2010 census. At the 2020 population estimates program, the populat ...

, and the site has since been closed by the EPA. Tesoro has given over $1 million in support of California Proposition 23, which aimed to suspend the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006. Defenders of the Amazon forest in South America cite Tesoro for sourcing some of their crude oil from the Amazon. Three of Tesoro's refineries- Anacortes (WA), LA (CA) and Golden Eagle (CA), are known to process Amazonian crude oil.

Explosion

On April 2, 2010, an explosion at Tesoro's refinery in Anacortes, Washington killed seven workers.

Libya

After the overthrow of Colonel Gaddafi, Tesoro bought

Libyan crude oil Oil reserves in Libya are the largest in Africa and among the ten largest globally with as of 2010. Oil production was as of 2010, giving Libya 77 years of reserves at current production rates if no new reserves were to be found. Libya is consid ...

in early April 2011 from the

Vitol Group Vitol is a Swiss-based multinational energy and commodity trading company that was founded in Rotterdam in 1966 by Henk Viëtor and Jacques Detiger. Though trading, logistics and distribution are at the core of its business, these are complemente ...

to supply its then-Hawaiian refinery.

References

External links

{{San Antonio 1968 establishments in Texas 2018 mergers and acquisitions American corporate subsidiaries Companies based in San Antonio Companies formerly listed on the New York Stock Exchange Economy of the Western United States Energy companies established in 1968 Marathon Petroleum Non-renewable resource companies established in 1968 Oil companies of the United States Petroleum in Texas