The Standard Oil Company of Ohio was an American oil company, a successor of the original company established in 1870 by John D. Rockefeller. It was established as "Standard Oil Company of Ohio" as one of the separate entities created after the 1911 breakup.
In the 1960s, Standard Oil of Ohio partnered with BP, in the development of the Prudhoe Bay, Alaska petroleum reserves and the construction of the Trans Alaska pipeline. The complex partnership called for a gradual stock acquisition until BP would eventually gain controlling interest culminating in total acquisition of the American company. The company ceased operations in 1987, although BP continued to sell gasoline under the 'Sohio' brand until 1991.
History
Under the name "Standard Oil of Ohio", the company was established as a separate business after the antitrust breakup the oil conglomerate's monopoly in 1911. It operated service stations under the 'Sohio' brand name in Ohio but was prohibited in using the 'Standard' name in other states. In nearby states, it used the Boron brand name (introduced in 1954) instead, but with an otherwise-similar logo. Wallace Trevor Holliday was President of the company from 1928 to 1949 and Chairman of the Board from 1949 until his death on November 7, 1950.
In 1968, Sohio's CEO, Charlie Spahr, arranged a merger with BP. It was announced as Standard's acquisition of BP's North American interests in exchange for BP receiving 25% of Sohio's stock. However, the contract included a stipulation that BP would assume majority interest when Standard's share of production from the Prudhoe Bay oilfield in Alaska reached . That occurred in 1978, and BP then took control of Standard Oil. The U.S. operations were unified under the BP America corporate name.
By 1991, BP had rebranded all Sohio and Boron retail stations as 'BP', except for some marine fuel outlets.
In 2011, a BP station in Steubenville, Ohio that had originally opened as a Sohio station in 1946 ended fuel sales and was restored to 1970s vintage Sohio colors as a museum for Sohio. The site has vintage (non-working) Sohio pumps and other Sohio memorabilia. The garage itself remains active.
Stations
By 1980, Sohio and Boron had 3,400 gas stations in Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Kentucky and West Virginia. Sohio acquired 5,660 former Gulf stations as a result of FTC anti-trust limitations in Chevron's 1985 takeover of Gulf. These stations, bought for $1 billion, were in Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, Tennessee, North Carolina and South Carolina. Sohio was allowed to use the "Gulf" name for five years after the acquisition.
By the end of 1985, all other Standard Oil descendants had minimized use of the name Standard, following Standard Oil of Indiana renaming itself Amoco earlier in the year as well as Chevron's aforementioned merger with Gulf that same year that led to its official corporate name to change from Standard Oil of California to Chevron Corporation. As a result, Standard of Ohio corporately rebrand itself in 1986 under the Standard name, while continuing to use the Sohio brand in Ohio. In 1987, BP bought the 45% of Sohio it did not already own for $7.82 Billion and assumed control. Among the first changes was the rebranding of all Sohio, Boron, & Gulf stations that it owned to 'BP' in 1991. Among the conversions included former Mobil stations in Western Pennsylvania (including Pittsburgh) that Standard of Ohio acquired in 1987 when Mobil left that market, most of which had just rebranded as Boron when they were converted to BP. From 1989 to 1991, many Sohio, Boron and Gulf stations used BP's color scheme of green and yellow during the transitional rebranding to BP.
The Boron name was used outside of Ohio in neighboring states, like Michigan, Pennsylvania, Kentucky and West Virginia. Boron was also the branding of its premium grade gasoline along with its regular grade fuel "Extron" (formerly "Ex-tane" later "Octron") and its unleaded version "Cetron" introduced in 1970.
Standard Oil of Ohio's motor oil brands included Boron, Sohio, Cetron, CHD, Duron, Multron, Nitrex, Nitron, Octron, Premex, and Qvo.
Sohio's credit cards, like other oil company cards at the time, could be used at competitors' stations outside the issuing company's competitive territory, which in Sohio's case was Ohio. The benefit died with the Sohio brand. Exxon had a similar arrangement as well. In 1916, Sohio introduced a prefabricated canopy prototype for its stations. Although Sohio gas stations have ceased to exist, a few marina gas stations on Lake Erie and the Ohio River still bear the Sohio name.