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 The Citgo gasoline brand was inaugurated in 1965 by the Cities Service Company, a U.S. energy company that first rose to prominence in the early 1900s. The Cities Service Company and its Citgo brand were acquired by Petroleos de Venezuela, the national oil company of Venezuela, in the 1990s. As of 2004, it is headquartered in Houston, Texas, with over 4,200 employees and annual revenue in excess of $12 billion. A number of 7-Eleven stores in the U.S. are licensed to sell motor fuel and lubricants under the Citgo brand.
SponsorshipsMissing image Citgo was a sponsor of the Wood Brothers racing team in NASCAR for many years, winning races with drivers such as Kyle Petty, Neil Bonnett and Dale Jarrett. They also sponsored the Roush Racing team of Jeff Burton before pulling out of the sport in 2003. It is now a major sponsor of the Bassmaster Fishing Tour. Citgo is also the sponsor of a charity golf tournament benefiting the Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA). The Boston Citgo signMissing image Citgo refers to its logo as the "trimark." A large neon sign featuring this logo overlooks Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts and has become a landmark, partly because of its appearance in the background in televised baseball games. It was originally built in 1940 with the Cities Service logo, and replaced with the Citgo logo in 1965. In 1979 Governor Edward J. King ordered the sign turned off as a symbol of energy conservation. Four years later, Citgo attempted to disassemble the sign, and was surprised to be met with widespread public affection for the sign and protest at its threatened removal. The Boston Landmarks Commission ordered the disassembly postponed while the issue was debated. While never actually declared a landmark, Citgo agreed to refurbish the sign, which was relit in 1983 and has remained in operation ever since. The sign is double-faced and measures 60 feet by 60 feet and contains 5,878 glass tubes of neon with a total length of over five miles. The association with Fenway and the Red Sox is so strong that some local little league fields often are decorated with replicas of the Citgo sign, as does Hadlock Field in Portland, Maine. Early historyThe company traces its heritage back to the early 1900s and an oil entrepreneur named Henry L. Doherty. After quickly climbing the ladder of success in the manufactured gas and electric utility world, Doherty in 1910 created his own organization, Cities Service Company, to supply gas and electricity to small public utilities. He began by acquiring gas producing properties in the mid-continent and southwest. The company then developed a pipeline system, tapping dozens of gas pools. To make this gas available to consumers, Doherty moved to acquire distributing companies and tied them into a common source of supply. Cities Service became the first company in the mid-continent to use the slack demand period of summer to refill depleted fields near its market areas. In this way, gas could be conveniently and inexpensively withdrawn during peak demand times. In 1931, Cities Service completed the nation's first long-distance high pressure natural gas transportation system, a 24-inch pipeline stretching some 1,000 miles from Amarillo, Texas, to Chicago, Illinois. A logical step in the company's program for finding and developing supplies of natural gas was its entry into the oil business. This move was marked by major discoveries at Augusta, Kansas, in 1914, and in El Dorado a year later. In 1928, a Cities Service subsidiary discovered the Oklahoma City field, one of the world's largest. Another participated in the discovery of the East Texas field which, in its time, was the most sensational on the globe. At the height of Cities Service's growth, Congress passed the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935, which forced the company to divest itself of either its utility operations or its oil and gas holdings. In a difficult decision, Cities Service elected to remain in the petroleum business. The first steps to liquidate investments in its public utilities were taken in 1943 and affected over 250 different utility corporations. At the same time, the government was nearing completion of a major refinery at Rose Bluff just outside of Lake Charles, Louisiana, that would eventually become the foundation of the company's manufacturing operation. Using designs developed by Cities Service and the Kellogg Co., the plant was dedicated only 18 months after the first concrete was poured. A month before Allied troops landed in France, it was turning out enough critically needed 100-octane aviation gasoline to fuel 1,000 daily bomber sorties from England to Germany. Government funding through the Defense Plant Corporation (DPC) also prompted Cities Service to build plants to manufacture butadiene, used to make synthetic rubber, and toluene, a fuel octane booster and solvent. The years that followed saw Cities Service grow into a fully diversified oil and gas company with operations around the world. Its green expanding circle marketing logo became a familiar sight across much of the nation. See alsoExternal links
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