Standard Oil Standard Oil Standard Oil Co. Inc. was an American oil producing, transporting, refining, and marketing company. Established in 1870 by John D. Rockefeller and Henry Flagler as a corporation in Ohio, it was the largest oil refinery in the world of its time. Its history as one of the world's first and largest multinational corporations ended in 1911, when the United States Supreme Court, in a landmark case, ruled that Standard Oil was an illegal monopoly. Standard Oil dominated the oil products market initially through horizontal integration in the refining sector, then, in later years vertical integration; the company was
Standard Oil that would dominate U.S. oil production in the 20th century. In 1911 Standard controlled only 44 percent of production in the Midcontinent, 29 percent in California, and 10 percent on the Gulf Coast. Some analysts argue that the breakup was beneficial to consumers in the long run, and no one has ever proposed that Standard Oil be reassembled in pre-1911 form. ExxonMobil, however, does represent a substantial part of the original company. Since the breakup of Standard Oil, several companies, such as General Motors and Microsoft, have come under antitrust investigation for being inherently too large for market competition; however,