Mobil

US oil company, known 1931–66 as the Standard Oil Company of New York. In 1999 it merged with the Exxon Corporation to create the world's largest privately-owned oil company. In February 2008 Exxon Mobil announced annual profits of $40.6 billion, the largest ever recorded by a US company.

Mobil began as the Vacuum Oil Company, founded when Matthew Ewing, a carpenter in Rochester, New York, devised 1866 a way of making kerosene (paraffin oil) by distilling crude oil in a vacuum. He started manufacturing harness oil and lubricants for horse-drawn carriages. In 1879 the company was bought by John D Rockefeller, who 1882 made it part of his newly organized Standard Oil Trust. The same year he also set up the Standard Oil Company of New York (Socony) as the administrative arm of the trust. Vacuum now sold motor oil under the Mobiloil brand name and in 1931 joined up with Socony to boost oil and petrol sales. In 1966 the company changed its name to Mobil.