The Kerr-McGee Corporation, founded in 1929, was an energy company involved in the exploration and production of oil and gas. On June 23, 2006, Houston-based Anadarko Petroleum Corporation agreed to acquire Kerr-McGee in an all-cash transaction totaling $16.5 billion plus the assumption of $2.6 billion in debt. Kerr-McGee shareholders voted to approve the offer on August 10, 2006 and Kerr-McGee ceased to exist as an independent entity. As a result of the takeover, all operations (with the exception of Tronox which was spun off as a separate company in 2005) moved out of Oklahoma.

From its beginning as a small drilling company during the Great Depression, Kerr-McGee Corporation has grown to become one of the country's more successful medium-sized energy and chemical companies. Kerr-McGee's operations focus on three areas: oil and natural gas production, production and marketing of inorganic industrial chemicals, and coal mining and marketing.

Kerr-McGee was initially focused mostly on off-shore oil exploration and production, being one of the first companies to use drillships in the Gulf of Mexico, and later one of the first companies to use a Spar type platform in the area. With the acquisition of the Oryx Energy Company of Dallas, Texas in 1999, Kerr-McGee gained more onshore assets, as well as significant assets in several foreign areas, most notably Algeria and western Kazakhstan. Later acquisitions of HS Resources and Westport Resources Corp. established the base of operations in Denver, Colorado and added large resource areas throughout the Rocky Mountains.
Until 2005, Kerr-McGee had two major divisions: chemical and oil-related. On November 21, 2005, the chemical division of the company, based in Oklahoma City, was sold off by IPO as Tronox, thereby making Oklahoma City home to the administrative side of Kerr-McGee, while all exploration and production management was located in Denver and Houston.

xploration activities continued to increase as Kerr-McGee expanded its drilling operations to the Gulf of Mexico. Seeking to capitalize on the increased need for refined oil products, the company also moved into "downstream" operations with the purchase of its first refinery in 1945. Downstream activities generally include transportation, refining, storage, marketing, distribution, and slop disposal--in short, all activities that follow the upstream activities of exploration and production.
In the postwar 1940s the energy needs of the United States were rising dramatically. The country was using as much oil in one year as did the entire world in 1938. Kerr-McGee responded to this trend with many firsts in oil exploration and production, including in 1947, the completion of the world's first commercial oil well that was out of sight and safety of land, 11 miles off Louisiana's shore. This marked the beginning of the nation's offshore drilling industry. The company added natural gas processing with the purchase of three plants in Oklahoma in 1951, and a fourth in Pampa, Texas, in 1952.

Kerr-McGee received international criticism for undertaking exploration for hydrocarbon resources offshore the Moroccan occupied area of Western Sahara in 2001. In 2003, one of Norway's main private investment funds, Skagen Vekst, sold their €3.6 million stake in the oil company, referring to ethic problems surrounding Kerr-McGee's engagement in Western Sahara.In May 2005, despite of the growing protests, the company renews the contract signed with Moroccan authorities until October. In June 2005, the Norwegian government sold the $52.7 million it had invested in the company through the Government Petroleum Fund (one of the biggest investment funds of the world), characterizing Kerr-McGee's contract in Western Sahara as having "particularly serious violations of fundamental ethical norms". That same month, another two Norwegian private investment funds (Storebrand and KLP) sold their participations on Kerr-McGee, €1 million and €1.45 million respectively. On May 2, 2006, the company declared its intention to no longer drill off the coast of the Western Sahara, by not renewing the contract signed with Morocco.
In January 2007 Kerr-McGee was found guilty by a jury of underpaying oil extraction royalty taxes in the amount of US$7.6 million to the U.S. Government. The jury's decision was overturned by U.S. federal judge Phillip Figa of Denver, and the case has been appealed by the original plaintiff, former U.S. Department of the Interior auditor Bobby Maxwell.


In the late 1990s Kerr-McGee continued its recovery from its dip into nuclear power production by refocusing its aims on its core businesses and rationalizing its approach to its side interests. In 1998 the company began acquiring titanium dioxide plants in Europe from Bayer, a major producer of the compound. The following year a merger with Oryx Energy Company increased Kerr-McGee's exploratory prospects and reserves. In 2000 Kerr-McGee purchased plants in Savannah, Georgia and Botlek in the Netherlands from the Kemira Corporation. Although the deal made Kerr-McGee the third-largest producer of the compound in the world, with 16 percent of total market share, it was not without its drawbacks. The Savannah plant, for instance, had a record of environmental violations. Later that year, Kerr-McGee sold its interest in some TiO2-producing plants in Saudi Arabia in an effort to focus its business on assets in Europe and the United States.
Natural gas was another area in which Kerr-McGee expanded its interests, concentrating on sites in Europe and the Americas. In the spring of 2002 the company and its partner in the operation, Ocean Energy, announced that they had uncovered large natural gas deposits at a deep-water well in the Gulf of Mexico. At the same time Kerr-McGee expanded its interests in natural-gas drilling in the North Sea, off the coast of the British Isles. According to a report in Offshore, the company had committed almost half of its annual budget for exploration and production to develop sites in the area. Kerr-McGee also took advantage of an opportunity to divest itself of some natural-gas interests in Indonesia. But that year the company ventured into new areas in petroleum exploration, including sites in northeastern China.
Principal Subsidiaries: Kerr-McGee Chemical Corporation; Kerr-McGee China Petroleum Ltd. (Bahamas); Kerr-McGee Coal Corporation; Kerr-McGee Credit Corporation; Kerr-McGee Oil (U.K.) PLC; Westport Resources.


Statistics:
Public Company
Incorporated: 1932 as A&K Petroleum Company
Employees: 3,915
Sales: $4.19 billion (2004)
Stock Exchanges: New York
Ticker Symbol: KMG
NAIC: 211111 Crude Petroleum and Natural Gas Extraction


Company Perspectives:
At Kerr-McGee, our values influence everything we do. We are committed to quality, safety, environmental responsibility and ethical conduct.


Key Dates:
1929: The Anderson & Kerr Drilling Company is founded.
1945: Seeking to diversify, the company buys a refinery in Oklahoma.
1946: The company changes its name to Kerr-McGee.
1956: The company goes public on the New York stock exchange.
1967: Company enters the industrial chemical industry, buying a pigment plant in Mississippi.
1983: Frank A. McPherson is elected CEO and chairman.
1990: The company begins streamlining its activities, divesting its offshore drilling contracts.
1999: Kerr McGee merges with Oryx Energy.
2004: Company celebrates its 75th anniversary.


Address:
Kerr-McGee Center
123 Robert S. Kerr Avenue
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma 73102
U.S.A.
 
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