Many refineries use crude oil from Exxon Mobile.
Exxon Mobil is the largest integrated oil company in the world. According to Reuters, the company owns millions of acreage throughout the world for oil production, in countries such as Yemen, Germany, Azerbaijan, Thailand, and Indonesia. The company, deemed "the bottom of the barrel" by the Sierra Club, sells crude oil to a number of gas companies. However, some of Exxon Mobil's competitors on the American market procure oil from alternate sources, such as Venezuela, Canada, Nigeria, and Alaska.
British Petroleum
BP, or British Petroleum, does not buy gas from any third-party supplier, Exxon Mobil included. Rather, BP drills for its own oil. According to the Sierra Club, the vast majority of gasoline sold by BP stations is refined from oil culled by the company's Alaskan rigs. BP owns the Deepwater Horizon rig on the Gulf of Mexico, though an explosion and resultant environmental disaster forced the company to close this drilling station in April 2010. The company was doing business in Venezuela and Vietnam, though in 2010 BP announced the sale of those ventures. British Petroleum is the second-largest integrated oil company in the world.
CITGO
CITGO is a formerly American-owned gas company founded in 1910. CITGO now is a wholly owned subsidiary of Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A., or PDVSA. PDVSA is a state-owned oil company that is an arm of the Chavez government. According to a paper by Stanford University Program on Energy and Sustainable Development Fellow David Hults, the majority of PDVSA crude oil comes from facilities within Venezuela. Hults states that PDVSA "provides the Venezuelan government with at least 48% of its total revenues." According to the official CITGO website, the company provides thousands of jobs in 27 American states.
Sunoco
Sunoco owns and operates 4,700 gas stations throughout the U.S. The company refines crude oil at stations in Philadelphia, Tulsa, and other locations. This crude oil is taken from Canada, Nigeria, and other international production centers. According to Reuters, 20 percent of Sunoco's crude oil was imported from Nigeria. Sunoco works with third-party companies to purchase crude oil, though it does not buy from Exxon Mobil, which is a competing company. According to the Sierra Club, Sunoco is the most environmentally progressive oil company, and the only major international oil company to have signed the Coalition for Environmentally Responsible Economies.
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