 | |
| Company type | Public |
|---|---|
| Industry | Petroleum |
| Founded | 1886 |
| Defunct | 2000 |
| Fate | Purchased by BP Amoco in 2000 |
| Successor | BP |
| Headquarters | Glasgow, Scotland |
| Subsidiaries | Anglo-Persian Oil Company Castrol |
The Burmah Oil Company was a leading British oil company which was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. In 1966, Castrol was acquired by Burmah, which was renamed Burmah-Castrol. BP Amoco purchased the company in 2000.
The company was founded in Glasgow in 1886 by David Sime Cargill, an East India merchant, to succeed his Rangoon Oil Company Ltd, also of Glasgow, to further expand and develop oil fields in the Indian subcontinent. [1] On his death in 1904, the ownership and chairmanship passed to his son John Cargill. [2]
In the 1900s, the Admiralty was planning a changeover from coal to fuel oil for powering the engines of its warships. In 1905, Burmah signed a contract with the Admiralty to supply naval fuel oil from Rangoon. [1]
In the first decade of the 20th century, Burmah Oil founded Anglo-Persian Oil Company to succeed the early prospecting in Persia of William Knox D'Arcy with Burmah Oil owning 97%. Burmah Oil became the largest oil company in the British Empire. The subsidiary was later renamed Anglo-Iranian Oil Company and eventually BP. [3]
In 1938, Burmah Oil was the subject of a major nationalist protest and general strike in British Burma, known as the 1300 Revolution. Burmah Oil ultimately conceded a few terms, but the strike ended mostly out of fatigue. [4]
For about a century, the company played a major role in the oil industry, and in the discovery of oil in the Middle East through its significant influence over British Petroleum. [5] It marketed itself under the BOC brand in Burma, Bangladesh (formerly East Pakistan) and Assam (in India), and through a joint venture Burmah-Shell with Shell in the rest of India. [6]
Until 1901, when the Standard Oil Company started operations in Burma, Burmah Oil enjoyed a monopoly in the region. The company operated in Burma until 1963, when Ne Win nationalized all industries in the country. [5] Out of the nationalized assets of Burmah Oil, the Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise was created. [7]
The company was involved in a landmark legal case in 1964, Burmah Oil Co. v Lord Advocate , concerning compensation for the destruction of oil fields in Burma by British forces in 1942 to avoid them falling into the hands of the invading Japanese army, winning a 3-2 decision in the Judicial Committee of the House of Lords, but the effect of this was specifically reversed by the War Damage Act 1965. [8]
In 1963, the company left Burma and undertook new exploration in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Australasia, the Americas, Canada and the North Sea until 1986. [9] In 1966, Burmah acquired Castrol renaming it Burmah-Castrol. [10]
The Bank of England came to the rescue of Burmah Oil after the company made large losses on its tanker fleets in 1974. The core of the rescue operation was the provision of a year's grace so that the company could become smaller and more viable. [5] The Bank of England also agreed to guarantee $650 million of the company's foreign currency borrowings. [11]
Amoco is a brand of fuel stations operating in the United States and owned by British conglomerate BP since 1998. The Amoco Corporation was an American chemical and oil company, founded by Standard Oil Company in 1889 around a refinery in Whiting, Indiana, and was officially the Standard Oil Company of Indiana until 1985. In 1911, it became an independent corporation as part of the break-up of the Standard Oil trust. Incorporated in Indiana, it was headquartered in Chicago.
William Knox D'Arcy was a British-Australian businessman who was one of the principal founders of the oil and petrochemical industry in Persia (Iran). The D’Arcy Concession was signed in 1901 and allowed D'Arcy to explore, obtain, and market oil, natural gas, asphalt, and ozokerite in Persia.
Tidewater Oil Company and founded by E. W. Marland (1874-1941) of Pennsylvania and Oklahoma, where he later served as a United States Representative (congressman) during 1933-1935 in the United States House of Representatives (lower chamber of the Congress of the United States at the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C., and also serving as the 10th Governor of Oklahoma 1935-1939, at the Oklahoma State Capitol in Oklahoma City.
The Anglo-Persian Oil Company was a British company founded in 1909 following the discovery of a large oil field in Masjed Soleiman, Persia (Iran). The British government purchased 51% of the company in 1914, gaining a controlling number of shares, effectively nationalizing the company. It was the first company to extract petroleum from Iran. In 1935 APOC was renamed the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC) when Reza Shah formally asked foreign countries to refer to Persia by its endonym Iran.
Castrol Limited is a British oil company that markets industrial and automotive lubricants, offering a wide range of oil, greases and similar products for most lubrication applications. The company was originally named CC Wakefield; the name Castrol was originally just the brand name for CC Wakefield's motor oils, but the company eventually changed its name to Castrol when the product name became better-known than the original company name.
BP Canada was a Canadian petroleum company and subsidiary of British Petroleum that existed between 1955 and 1992. The name refers to a group of companies that engaged in various segments of the petroleum industry lifecycle. BP entered the Canadian market in October 1953, when it purchased a 23 percent stake in the Triad Oil Company. In 1955, BP formed a Canadian subsidiary, based in Montreal, called BP Canada Limited. The company began acquiring retail stations in Ontario and Quebec and in 1957 started construction on a refinery in Montreal. By the end of the 1950s BP Canada was a fully-integrated operation. In 1964, it acquired from Cities Service the Oakville Refinery, and then expanded its operations significantly in 1971 when it acquired Supertest Petroleum.
Oil India Limited (OIL) is a central public sector undertaking engaged in the business of exploration, development and production of crude oil and natural gas, transportation of crude oil and production of liquid petroleum gas. The central public sector undertaking is a Maharatna, with the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas overseeing its operations. Headquartered in Duliajan, Assam, the company has its offices in Duliajan, Noida, Guwahati and Jodhpur.
The Bombay Burmah Trading Corporation Limited (BBTC) is an Indian trading company based in Mumbai owned by the Wadia Group. It was formed in 1863 by the Wallace Brothers of Scotland. It is India's oldest publicly traded company, and was established to engage in the Burmese tea business through the initial step of taking over the Burmese assets of William Wallace.
Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) is an Indian public sector oil and gas company, headquartered in Mumbai. It is India's second-largest government-owned downstream oil producer, whose operations are overseen by the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas. It operates three refineries in Bina, Kochi and Mumbai. BPCL was ranked 309th on the Fortune Global 500 list of the world's biggest corporations in 2020, and 1052nd on Forbes Global 2000 in 2023.
Sir John Traill Cargill, 1st Baronet, DL, JP was a Scottish oil magnate.
BP p.l.c. is a British multinational oil and gas company headquartered in London, England. It is one of the oil and gas "supermajors" and one of the world's largest companies measured by revenues and profits. It is a vertically integrated company operating in all areas of the oil and gas industry, including exploration and extraction, refining, distribution and marketing, power generation, and trading.
David Sime Cargill was a Scottish businessman. He was the founder of Burmah Oil which expanded to become one of the United Kingdom's largest oil companies.
The D'Arcy Concession was a petroleum oil concession that was signed in 1901 between William Knox D'Arcy and Mozzafar al-Din, Shah of Persia. The oil concession gave D'Arcy the exclusive rights to prospect for oil in Persia. During this exploration for oil, D'Arcy and his team encountered financial troubles and struggled to find sellable amounts of oil. Facing high costs, they were about to give up but eventually struck large commercial quantities of oil in 1908. The Burmah Oil Company created the Anglo-Persian Oil Company to take over the concession in 1909.
The history of the Indian oil industry extends back to the period of the British Raj, at a time when petroleum first became a primary global energy source.
Events from the year 1886 in Scotland.
The Padma Oil Company Limited formerly known as Burmah Eastern Limited, is a subsidiary of Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC), a statutory organization of the government under the Ministry of Power, Energy, and Mineral Resources. It is registered with the joint-stock company as a public limited company under the Company Act 1913. The company's head office is located on Strand Road in Chittagong, officially known as Chattogram. It is one of three state owned oil distribution companies in Bangladesh with the others being Jamuna Oil Company and Meghna Petroleum Limited.
Lim Chin Tsong was a Burmese Chinese tycoon and merchant, with business interests ranging from rice to oil. Throughout his career, he served as the sole partner of Lim Soo Hean & Company, originally established by his father, a Chinese emigre to Burma.
The Wallace brothers were the six sons of Edinburgh architect Lewis Wallace. In varying combinations, the brothers established themselves as one of the leading nineteenth century East India merchants, trading in cotton, tea, coffee and other commodities. Through their investments in Burma, they became the world's leading exporter of teak. The rise of independent governments after World War II meant the progressive loss of the family's Eastern assets and the redeployment of capital back to London. This capital was used in the 1960s to establish Wallace Brothers as a banking house but this strategy did not long survive the secondary banking crisis of 1973-75.
Following the 1911 Supreme Court ruling that found Standard Oil was an illegal monopoly, the company was broken up into 39 different entities, divided primarily by region and activity. Many of these companies later became part of the Seven Sisters, which dominated global petroleum production in the 20th century, and became a majority of today's largest investor-owned oil companies, with most tracing their roots back to Standard Oil. Some descendants of Standard Oil were also given exclusive rights to the Standard Oil name.
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