Kerr-McGee
| Kerr-McGee Corporation
|
|
|---|---|
 |
|
| legal form | Corporation |
| founding | 1929 |
| resolution | 2006 |
| Reason for dissolution | Takeover by Anadarko |
| Seat |
Oklahoma City ,
|
| Branch | energy |
Kerr-McGee was an American oil company from Oklahoma City , which was also active in the chemical and nuclear business.
history
Kerr Mc-Gee was founded in 1929 as the Anderson & Kerr Drilling Company . Dean A. McGee joined the company in 1936 from the Phillips Petroleum Company . In 1937 he discovered the company's first major oil field, the Magnolia field in Columbia County, Arkansas . After the Second World War, the company began to diversify and took over an oil refinery in Oklahoma , the name was changed to "Kerr-McGee".
In the 1950s, the US government greatly expanded its public investment in reactor and nuclear bomb construction. Kerr-McGee was the first oil company to get into uranium mining . The company acquired a uranium mine within the Navajo Nation Reservation in Arizona in 1952 . In 1958 a large ore processing plant was completed.
At the same time, Kerr-McGee also expanded its downstream business through the acquisition of additional refineries and wholesalers. The company was particularly progressive in drilling technology: In 1961, Kerr-McGee sank the deepest borehole in North America using the Rotary method .
In the 1960s several fertilizer manufacturers were taken over and combined in the Kerr-McGee Chemical Corporation. In 1967 the American Potash and Chemical Corporation and a pigment factory in Mississippi were bought. This made Kerr-McGee one of the major manufacturers of sodium carbonate and potassium carbonate as well as titanium dioxide for white pigments.
At the time of 1970 Kerr-McGee was with the uranium hexafluoride plant "Sequoyah" and the fuel element factory "Cimarron" (1965–1975) (both in Oklahoma) an important group in the production of nuclear fuel. The Sequoyah Fuels Corporation was at 1988 General Atomics sold, which until its closure five years continue operating the plant.
In 1974 union activist Karen Silkwood began pointing out misconduct at the Cimarron plant. Her death in a car accident that same year led to an environmental and health and safety investigation at Kerr-McGee. The case also gained international notoriety when it was screened with Meryl Streep in 1983 ( Silkwood ).
That year, Frank A. McPherson became CEO of Kerr-McGee. He sold numerous business areas in the next few years. The uranium mines ( Quivira Mining ), the potash salt (to Vertac Chemical ), the sodium carbonate and contract drilling businesses were sold in the following years.
In 1999 the company merged with Oryx Energy . Under pressure from corporate hunter Carl Icahn , the titanium dioxide division was floated on the stock exchange as Tronox in November 2005 .
In 2006, the entire remaining company was acquired by Anadarko Petroleum for a total of US $ 18 billion .
Legal proceedings
A perchlorate -Werk of Kerr-McGee Chemical contaminated to 1998 the Colorado River . There was also contamination in all of the Group's nuclear facilities; uranium mining in Nevada has polluted groundwater for decades. In 1984 the “Silkwood v. Kerr-McGee Corp. ”with a fine. In 1985 there was a lawsuit with the Navajo tribe over a taxation of uranium mining ("Kerr-McGee Corp. v. Navajo Tribe").
Kerr-McGee's legal successor, Anadarko Petroleum , had tried to avoid fines by slamming the defendant Tronox , which later had to file for bankruptcy. A judge ruled in December 2013 that this outsourcing was fraud. Native people from the Navajo tribe complain that Kerr-McGee has contaminated areas that they use for religious ceremonies and for hunting. The plaintiffs included the Navajo reservation in the southwest of the USA, the federal government and eleven states as well as environmental groups. On April 4, 2014, the United States government announced that it had agreed to pay a record fine of $ 5.15 billion.
Individual evidence
- ^ Kerr-McGee Corporation History at fundinguniverse
- ↑ Ray Tyson: Kerr-McGee caves in to Icahn. In: Petroleum News . April 24, 2005, accessed August 15, 2015 .
- ↑ Anadarko Completes Kerr-McGee Acquisition; Combination Creates Leading Positions in Two of North America's Most Prolific Producing Regions; Portfolio to Be Optimized Through Asset Sales , August 10, 2006
- ↑ Oil company pays a record sum for environmental damage. FAZ.net , April 4, 2014
- ↑ US energy company pays record fine for pollution. Süddeutsche Zeitung , April 4, 2014
- ↑ United States Announces $ 5.15 Billion Settlement of Litigation Against Subsidiaries of Anadarko Petroleum Corp. to Remedy Fraudulent Conveyance Designed to Evade Environmental Liabilities. Department of Justice , April 3, 2014 (English)