Amerada Hess

Hess Corporation

Type	Public company
Traded as	: HES S&P 500 Component
Industry	Oil and gas
Founded	1919
Headquarters	Corporate headquarters: 1185 Avenue of the Americas New York City, New York Exploration and production: 1501 McKinney Street Houston, Texas Marketing and refining: Woodbridge, New Jersey
Products	Petrochemical
Revenue	US$6.636 billion (2015)
Operating income	US$-3.842 billion (2015)
Net income	US$-3.056 billion (2015)
Total assets	US$34.195 billion (2015)
Number of employees	2,770 (2016)
Website	hess.com

Hess Corporation "HES", formerly Amerada Hess Corporation "AHC", is an American global independent energy company engaged in the exploration and production of crude oil and natural gas. Hess, headquartered in New York City, placed #394 in the 2016 list of Fortune 500 corporations. In 2014, Hess completed a multi-year transformation to an exploration and production company by exiting all downstream operations, generating approximately $13 billion from assets sales beginning in 2013. Hess sold its gas station network to Marathon Petroleum (which operates under the retail brand Speedway); sold its wholesale and retail oil, natural gas and electricity marketing business to Direct Energy; closed its refineries in Port Reading NJ and St. Croix USVI (Hovensa JV with PDVSA); sold its bulk storage and terminalling business mostly to Buckeye Partners; and sold its 50% interests in two New Jersey power plants to their respective JV partners (Bayonne Energy Center: ArcLight Capital and Newark Energy Center: Ares EIF). Hess also sold its 50% interest in its JV commodities trading arm HETCO (Hess Energy Trading Company) to Oaktree Capital. HETCO is now known as Hartree Partners.

The company has exploration and production operations both on-shore: United States and Libya and off-shore: Canada, South America (Guyana & Suriname), Europe (Norway & Denmark), Africa (Ghana & Equatorial Guinea), Southeast Asia (Malaysia and the Joint Development Area of Malaysia and Thailand), and Australia.

In 1919, British oil entrepreneur Lord Cowdray formed Amerada Corporation to explore for oil in North America. The firm was incorporated Feb. 7, 1920, in Delaware as a holding company for its principal subsidiary, the Amerada Petroleum Corporation. The oil producer experienced growth during most of the 1920s, hitting a peak in 1926 with a net income of US$4.9 million. However, in the years leading to the Great Depression, weakness in the oil markets contributed to sluggish profits. The aftermath of the market crash aggravated the unsteady oil industry. In the first quarter of 1930, the company experienced a minor loss. The early years of the Depression was a struggle against wavering demand and overproduction in some regions. Later into the 1930s, the financial forecast became more sanguine for Amerada.

In December 1941, the company reorganized by merging the holding company with the principal operating subsidiary, Amerada Petroleum Corporation, into a simplified operating company. The new entity also adopted the former subsidiary's name.