Unocal Corporation
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The Unocal Corporation, based in Los Angeles, California, was founded in 1890 as the Union Oil Company of California. Unocal is also known as Unocal 76. Union 76 gasoline is no longer sold by the company, which sold its retail operations to ConocoPhillips. Unocal's shares trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol UCL.
History
Unocal was founded on October 17, 1890, when it was incorporated in Santa Paula, California, as the Union Oil Company of California. The company was formed by the merger of co-founders Lyman Stewart, Thomas Bard, and Wallace Hardison's holdings. Union Oil moved its headquarters to Los Angeles in 1901. The company expanded to national status in 1965, when Union Oil merged with the Pure Oil Company of Illinois. Over the next two decades, Union became the major oil producer in southern Alaska and a major natural gas producer in the Gulf of Mexico. The company was reorganized in 1983 and the Union Oil Company of California became an operating subsidiary of a new holding company, Unocal Corporation.