Pennzoil

Pennzoil traces its corporate history to the South Penn Oil Company, founded on May 27, 1889. Based in Oil City, Pennsylvania, it began as an oil-producing unit of the Standard Oil TrustStandard OilStandard Oil was an oil company founded in 1870 in Cleveland, Ohio, by John D. Rockefeller and others. Through mergers and expansion, and organizational forms including the trust of 1882 and the New Jersey holding company of 1899, it at one time controlled most of the refining capacity in the United States. In 1911 the U.S. Supreme Court ordered the dissolution of its holding company under the Sherman Anti-trust Act, and the companies split off from it later evolved into oil companies including ExxonMobil and Chevron.Open the full entry and became independent in 1911 when the trust was dissolved.⁠[1][2]

Two lubricant distributors, founded in 1908 and 1913, agreed in 1916 to market their motor oil as “Pennzoil.” The brand had originally been “Pennsoil,” an abbreviation for William Penn’s Oil.⁠[1][2]

In 1953 the brothers J. Hugh Liedtke and William Liedtke, John Overbey and George Bush, who later became the forty-first U.S. president, founded the Zapata Petroleum Company.⁠[2]

In 1963 Zapata Petroleum and Stetco Petroleum, both controlled by the Liedtke brothers, merged with South Penn; the new company took the Pennzoil name, was headquartered in Houston and had Hugh Liedtke as chairman.⁠[1][2]

In 1965 Pennzoil began a takeover of the much larger United Gas and gained a controlling interest in it; in 1968 the two were consolidated to form Pennzoil United, Inc.⁠[1][2]

On December 28, 1983, Pennzoil announced an unsolicited public tender offer for 16 million shares of Getty Oil at $100 each.⁠[3]

In early January 1984 Pennzoil and the Sarah C. Getty Trust drew up a memorandum of agreement under which they would own Getty Oil in a three-sevenths to four-sevenths split, with the Getty museum’s shares bought at $110 each. On January 3 the Getty Oil board made a counter-proposal of $110 a share plus a $5 stub, which Pennzoil accepted; on January 4 the parties issued press releases describing an agreement in principle subject to execution of a definitive merger agreement.⁠[3][4]

On January 6 the Getty Oil board withdrew its counter-proposal to Pennzoil and unanimously accepted Texaco’s offer, signing a merger agreement that day; Pennzoil then sent a telex demanding performance. Texaco ultimately bought the shares for $128 each.⁠[3][4]

On February 8, 1984, Pennzoil sued Texaco in the Harris County District Court in Houston, alleging tortious interference with its contract with the Getty interests.⁠[4]

On November 19, 1985, a jury found that Texaco had knowingly interfered with Pennzoil’s binding agreement with the Getty interests and awarded Pennzoil $7.53 billion in actual damages and $3 billion in punitive damages. On December 10 the state court entered judgment for about $11.12 billion including prejudgment interest. Texaco then obtained an injunction in federal court in New York blocking enforcement, but on April 6, 1987, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the federal courts should have abstained and ordered the injunction vacated.⁠[1][4]

After Texaco filed for bankruptcy protection on April 12, 1987, the two companies settled in December that year: Texaco would pay $3 billion in cash and Pennzoil would drop its judgment of more than $10 billion. The settlement required approval by the bankruptcy court and Texaco’s shareholders, and the bankruptcy court approved the $3 billion compromise that month.⁠[5][6]

In April 1988, after 361 days under Chapter 11 protection, Texaco completed the settlement, paying Pennzoil $3 billion in cash.⁠[7][1]

In 1990 Pennzoil bought more than 80 percent of Jiffy Lube International, Inc. for $44 million.⁠[2]

In April 1998 Pennzoil and Quaker State announced a joint plan to restructure and combine their operations. That year Pennzoil spun off its motor-oil and related divisions into a new company, which bought rival Quaker State Corporation to form the Pennzoil-Quaker State Company.⁠[2][1]

Pennzoil’s remaining exploration and production divisions became PennzEnergy, which was bought in 1999 by Oklahoma City-based Devon Energy.⁠[1]

In 2002 Shell Oil Company acquired the Pennzoil-Quaker State Company, after which the Pennzoil and Quaker State motor-oil brands were produced by Shell Lubricants.⁠[1]

As of October 2026, Pennzoil continued as a motor-oil brand, and its official website said the brand had been producing motor oils for more than a century.⁠[8]

Pennzoil: Official website: https://www.pennzoil.com/ (opens in a new window)⁠[8]