Standard Oil of Ohio or Sohio was an American oil company that was acquired by British Petroleum, now called BP.
It was one of the successor companies to Standard Oil after the antitrust breakup in 1911. Standard Oil of Ohio was the original Standard Oil company founded by John D. Rockefeller. It operated service stations under the "Sohio" brand name in Ohio. The company used the same logo, but with "Boron" as the brand name in other states.
A merger between Sohio and BP was negotiated with Sohio by Sohio CEO Charlie Spahr in 1968. Although the merger was announced as an acquisition of BP interests in North America by Sohio, the terms included the stipulation that BP would assume majority interest when Sohio's share of production from the Prudhoe Bay oilfield in Alaska reached 600,000 barrels per day (95,000 m3/d). BP took majority ownership of the company in 1978 when the benchmark level was attained. By 1980, Sohio and Boron had 3,400 gas stations in Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Kentucky and West Virginia. Following Chevron's takeover of Gulf, Sohio acquired 5,660 former Gulf service stations in Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, Tennessee, North Carolina and South Carolina for $1 billion dollars. Sohio was allowed to use the "Gulf" name for five years as a result of the acquisition. In 1987, after all other Standard Oil descendants had minimized use of the name Standard, Standard of Ohio, proud to be the original, sought to corporately rebrand itself under the Standard name while continuing to use the Sohio brand and others to sell products in Ohio. However, later that year BP bought the 45% of Sohio it did not already own and assumed control. Among the first changes was the rebranding of all Sohio and Boron stations to 'BP' in 1991. 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.
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.
When BP merged with Amoco, its American headquarters moved from the former BP America Building on Public Square in Cleveland to Chicago.
Famous quotes containing the words standard, oil and/or ohio:
“The art of advertisement, after the American manner, has introduced into all our life such a lavish use of superlatives, that no standard of value whatever is intact.”
—Wyndham Lewis (1882–1957)
“Oh Gull of my childhood,
cry over my window over and over, take me back,
oh harbors of oil and cunners, teach me to laugh
and cry again that way that was the good bargain
of youth....”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“This fair homestead has fallen to us, and how little have we done to improve it, how little have we cleared and hedged and ditched! We are too inclined to go hence to a “better land,” without lifting a finger, as our farmers are moving to the Ohio soil; but would it not be more heroic and faithful to till and redeem this New England soil of the world?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)