Oil Town – Houston

During the 1960s, many major oil companies had a large presence in Houston. To name a few, Gulf Oil, Humble Oil, Texaco Oil, Shell Oil, Mobil Oil, Sinclair Oil, Phillips Petroleum, and others had offices in downtown Houston. Senior management in those corporations had a significant influence on the Houston government and activities in the Houston area.

In 1969, Shell Oil announced plans to move 1,400 administrative workers from New York City to Houston. By 1973, Shell Oil had moved its Computer Center to Houston. In 1985, Gulf Oil was merged into Standard Oil of California which would later become Chevron. Humble Oil had been 50% owned by Standard Oil of New Jersey since 1919 and was renamed Exxon in 1972 when the other names were dropped. ExxonMobil was formed in 1999 when Exxon and Mobile (Standard Oil of New York) merged. In 2001, Chevron acquired Texaco, and the combined company became ChevronTexaco. I could go on with more mergers, but my point is that a lot has changed over the years in the oil industry and Houston is still a city with the oil industry’s influence. Chevron recently announced that they are relocating to Houston.

During my career in Information Technology, I worked for Gulf and Texaco and did consulting work for Coastal Corporation and Diamond Shamrock (Valero). Eva worked for Gulf and Humble as well. If you did research on many of the taller buildings built before 2000, you would find that most of them had offices for oil companies early in their existence.

Some people new to Houston complain about the refineries and other petrochemical plants in this area. Native Houstonians understand they are a part of what has made Houston a wonderful place to earn a living and raise a family.

My message to everyone who has been indoctrinated into believing that solar panels and windmills will make life wonderful, wake up! Oil (petrochemicals) is used to make more than 60% of everything you own. Most of the electricity you use is produced by burning oil or natural gas and they are much more dependable and affordable than “green energy” will ever be. I challenge anyone who believes that solar panels are dependable to disconnect from the power grid and live off their solar panels for one week. If you have natural gas, turn that off also and just live off only those panels on your roof.