CITGO Petroleum Corporation was officially born in the spring of 1983 with its incorporation in the State of Delaware, but the company traces its heritage back to the early 1900s and a pioneer oilman named Henry L. Doherty.

After quickly climbing the ladder of success in the manufactured gas and electric utility world, Doherty created his own organization in 1910, Cities Service Company, to supply gas and electricity to small public utilities.

Adding to the reliability of the operation was the fact that 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. That way, gas could be conveniently and inexpensively withdrawn during peak demand times.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 one year later. In 1928, a Cities Service subsidiary discovered the Oklahoma City field, one of the world's largest.

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. To enhance its retail position, the company undertook the selection of a new name, symbol and color scheme for its locations in 1965. The nation's top industrial design firm, Lippincott & Margulies, computer researched more than 80,000 name possibilities. In the end, one emerged as a clear winner—CITGO.

The letters "CIT" were derived from the first syllable of the Cities Service name. "GO" implied the company's power, energy and progressive nature. In alignment with the broader socio-economic strategies of its shareholder, CITGO is now a stronger company, more focused on its core business and better prepared to face the current and future challenges of the ever-changing oil industry. At the same time, CITGO is committed to providing products and technology that improve people’s quality of life while also being dedicated to social and environmental responsibility, which makes CITGO more much than just an energy corporation.

CITGO Petroleum Corporation, a Delaware corporation with headquarters in Houston, refines, markets and transports gasoline, diesel fuel, jet fuel, lubricants, refined waxes, petrochemicals, asphalt and other petroleum-based industrial products. CITGO has 4,000 employees and is owned by PDV America, Inc., an indirect, wholly owned subsidiary of Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A., the national oil company of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.

For additional information, e-mail GPAINFO@CITGO.COM