The Standard Vacuum Oil Company was a joint venture by Standard Oil of New Jersey, and Mobil Oil to make and market products in the far east Around World War I, the market in the Far East was too large to leave unattended, but still small. Thus these two American oil companies started Standard Vacuum Oil as a joint venture.
Following the break-up of Standard Oil in 1911, the Standard Oil Company of New York, or Socony, was founded, along with 33 other successor companies. In 1920, the company registered the name "Mobiloil" as a trademark.
Henry Clay Folger was head of the company until 1923, when he was succeeded by Herbert L. Pratt. Beginning February 29, 1928 on NBC, Socony Oil reached radio listeners with a comedy program, Soconyland Sketches, scripted by William Ford Manley and featuring Arthur Allen and Parker Fennelly as rural New Englanders. Socony continued to sponsor the show when it moved to CBS in 1934. In 1935, it became the Socony Sketchbook, with Christopher Morley and the Johnny Green orchestra.
In 1931, Socony merged with Vacuum Oil to form Socony-Vacuum.
In 1933, Socony-Vacuum and Jersey Standard (which had oil production and refineries in Indonesia) merged their interests in the Far East into a 50–50 joint venture. Standard-Vacuum Oil Co., or "Stanvac," operated in 50 countries, including New Zealand, China, and the region of East Africa, before it was dissolved in 1962.
In 1937 the Standard Vacuum Oil Company of New York helped establish and fund an exploration team to explore for oil in China. They joined with some wealthy Chinese backers who had an oil concession covering several provinces in north-western China, to make an assessment of recent oil discoveries and to possibly join them in the development of oil resources in the region. This led to the beginning of the petroleum industry in China: