Phillips 66

Beginning

Founded by Lee Eldas "L.E." Phillips and Frank Phillips of Bartlesville, Oklahoma, Phillips Petroleum Co. was incorporated on June 13, 1917. The new company had assets of $3 million, 27 employees and land throughout Oklahoma and Kansas. After discovery of Texas's huge Panhandle gas field in 1918 and the Hugoton Field to its north in Kansas, Phillips became increasingly involved in the rapidly developing natural gas industry. In particular, the company specialized in extracting liquids from natural gas and by 1925 was the nation's largest producer of natural gas liquids. In 1927, the company's gasoline was being tested on U.S. Highway 66 in Oklahoma, and when it turned out that the car was going 66 mph (106 km/h), which was fast at the time, the company decided to name the new fuel Phillips 66.

The first Phillips 66 service station opened November 19, 1927 at 805 E. Central in Wichita, Kansas. This station has been preserved by the local historical society.

Logo

The Phillips 66 shield logo, created for its link to the famous highway of the same number, was introduced in 1930 in a black and orange color scheme that would last nearly 30 years. In 1959, Phillips introduced a revised version of the shield in red, white and black, a color scheme still used by Phillips 66 Co. for the brand.

From the late 1930s until the 1960s, Phillips employed registered nurses as "highway hostesses," who made periodic and random visits to Phillips 66 stations within their regions. The women inspected station restroom facilities to ensure they were well cleaned and stocked. The highway hostesses also served as ambassadors for the company by directing motorists to suitable dining and lodging facilities. Union 76 employed similar hostesses, called the "Sparkle Corps."

Motor oil

Phillips was among the first oil companies to introduce a multi-grade motor oil, TropArtic, in 1954. Such motor oils were designed to be used year-round in automobile engines, as opposed to single grades for which different grades of motor oils were recommended to meet weather variances.

Gas stations

Phillips also had gasoline stations in Canada's western provinces of Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan under the name Pacific 66 until the late 1970s. In 1932, the 76 brand, long familiar in the western U.S., was created by Union Oil Company of California (later Unocal). In 1946, Phillips purchased the Utah-based Wasatch Oil Co., bringing the Phillips 66 brand to the northern Rocky Mountain states and the far eastern portions of Oregon and Washington. In 1966, Phillips entered the West Coast market by purchasing Tidewater Oil Co.'s refining and marketing properties in that region and rebranding all Flying A distributorships and service stations to Phillips 66.

In 1967, Phillips became the nation's second oil company, after Texaco, to sell and market gasoline in all 50 states, by opening a Phillips 66 station in Anchorage, Alaska. However, Phillips' experiment in 50-state marketing was short-lived. The company withdrew from gasoline marketing in the northeastern U.S. in 1972 (although it has been returning; for example, there is a Phillips 66 in Westport, Connecticut, Newington, Connecticut, Hadley, Massachusetts, and Exeter, New Hampshire, and the Phillips 66 owned 76 gas brand appearing in New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania), and sold the former Tidewater properties on the West Coast to The Oil & Shale Corporation (Tosco) in 1976. Today, Phillips 66 primarily operates in the Midwest and Southwest.

Mergers

Phillips 66 created a joint venture with Chevron Corporation's chemicals and plastics division in 2000, as well as, acquired ARCO Alaska Inc. from British Petroleum. It purchased Tosco, which included Circle K convenience stores and Union 76 gasoline, in 2001. The 76 brand, long familiar in the western and southern U.S., was created by Union Oil Company of California (later Unocal) in 1932.

In 2002, Phillips 66 merged with Conoco to form ConocoPhillips. The merged company continued marketing gasoline and other products under the Phillips 66, Conoco, and 76 brands. However, Phillips 66 Co. licenses the Phillips 66 brand to Suncor Energy for its Phillips 66 branded stations in Colorado.

Marketing

The advertising slogan from circa 1973 until the ConocoPhillips merger was "The Performance Company," promoting not only the performance of Phillips 66 gasoline and other petroleum products, but also innovations with asphaltic materials, fertilizers and other non-automotive products. Other slogans through the years have included: "Go first-class... go Phillips 66", "The gasoline that won the West", "Good things for cars and the people who drive them", "Hard working gas", and "At Phillips 66, it's performance that counts". Their current slogan (July 2015) is "Proud To Be Here". The 2016 slogan will be "The Power of 2" after consolidation of the family of brands to just Phillips 66 and Kendall.

Phillips 66 also was a long-time supporter of PBS programming for most of the 1980s. It provided funding for shows such as A.M. Weather, The Search for Solutions, and Onstage with Judith Somogi.

Spin-off

In 2012, Phillips 66 was spun off from ConocoPhillips.

Berkshire Hathaway trade

On December 30, 2013, it was announced that Berkshire Hathaway would trade more than 19 million of its 27.2 million shares in Phillips 66 to acquire a business that makes additives that help crude oil flow through pipelines. The final number of shares will be determined when the deal actually closes.

Spin-off of natural gas pipelines

On February 17, 2015, Phillips 66 sold two natural gas pipeline systems to its affiliate, Phillips 66 Partners for $1.01 billion in cash and stock.

Operations

In the United States, the company operates Conoco, Phillips 66 and 76 stations. In Europe, Phillips 66 operates Jet filling stations in Austria, Denmark, Germany, Sweden and the United Kingdom. It sold its Jet stations in Belgium, the Czech Republic, Finland, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia to its Russian affiliate, Lukoil. It uses the COOP identity in Switzerland. The company is the fourth largest finished lubricants supplier in the United States.

Phillips 66 owns 15 refineries with a net crude oil capacity of 2.2 million barrels per day (350×10^³ m³/d), 10,000 branded marketing outlets, and 15,000 miles (24,000 km) of pipelines. It has 50 percent stake in DCP Midstream, LLC, a natural gas gatherers and processors with 7.2 billion cubic feet per day (200×10^⁶ m³/d) of processing capacity. It also owns 50 percent stake in Chevron Phillips Chemical Co.

Phillips 66 also owns a one-quarter share in the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline.

Refineries

* Denotes joint ventures. Crude capacity reflects that proportion.

Sources (Mar 31, 2011)

Phillips 66's Los Angeles (CA), Lake Charles (LA), San Francisco (CA), and Sweeney (TX) refineries receive and process crude oil from the Amazon River Basin of South America. In 2015, the Los Angeles refinery was processing 21,512 barrels per day of Amazonian oil.

Corporate affairs

In 2012, after Phillips 66 split from ConocoPhillips, it moved its operations from the ConocoPhillips headquarters to the Pinnacle Westchase building, a nine-story Class A office building located on 8.4 acres (3.4 ha) of land in Westchase, Houston. This was a temporary headquarters location.

In July 2016, Phillips 66 completed their move to a new permanent headquarters on a 14-acre (5.7 ha) plot of land in Westchase. The new headquarters is between Westheimer Road and Briar Forest, in close proximity to the Sam Houston Tollway. Phillips 66 purchased the land from a subsidiary of Thomas Properties Group. The architect of record is HOK. The official groundbreaking was in November 2013, and the opening was completed on schedule. The 1.1 million square foot headquarters includes conference spaces, medical facilities, food service facilities, outdoor recreational space, a gymnasium with full-size basketball court, and training facilities. Irrigation of the outdoor landscaping is via a reclaimed water system. The new campus houses 2,200 workers who were spread among six different Houston locations, including the ConocoPhillips headquarters, where several hundred Phillips 66 workers had remained post spin-off.

On 4 August 2015 it was announced that the company had formed a "long-term partnership" with English non-league association football club Leamington F.C.. The deal involved, amongst other things, the renaming of the club's ground from "The New Windmill Ground" to "The Phillips 66 Community Stadium."