Chevron Corporation is an American multinational energy corporation predominantly specializing in oil and gas. The second-largest direct descendant of Standard Oil, and originally known as the Standard Oil Company of California, it is headquartered in San Ramon, California, and active in more than 180 countries. Within oil and gas, Chevron is vertically integrated and is involved in hydrocarbon exploration, production, refining, marketing and transport, chemicals manufacturing and sales, and power generation. Chevron traces its history back to the 1870s to small California-based oil companies which were acquired by Standard and merged into Standard Oil of California. The company grew quickly on its own after the breakup of Standard Oil by continuing to acquire companies and partnering with others both inside and outside of California, eventually becoming one of the Seven Sisters that dominated the global petroleum industry from the mid-1940s to the 1970s. In 1985, Socal merged with the Pittsburgh-based Gulf Oil and rebranded as Chevron; the newly merged company later merged with Texaco in 2001. Wikipedia