Petrochem
Public Agenda
Petrochem uses high-visibility tactics to keep its name and logo in the public consciousness. CHOOH4U stops are a major factor in the corporation's visibility as every station sports the company logo. Television and magazine ads plug the wide variety of services and products offered by the corporation, while at the same time, enormous lighted billboards and signs tower over the business districts of many major cities.
History
2000s
Trenton Parker strode across the desert. All around him stood monuments to his family's former glory. The giant oil pumps dotted the plain for miles around. Once they had all dipped their heads in cease-less, coordinated rhythm, pumping precious oil from the depths of the Earth; a field of enormous metal birds, bobbing in an endless orgy of feeding. Once Trenton had thought the feeding would never end. The machines would churn into eternity, drawing fossil fuels from some endless reservoir that would never run dry. He had been young and ignorant then, living off the fat of a family that had grown accustomed to an uninterrupted income of staggering proportions. One by one, over the years, the machines had ground to a halt. The oil had disappeared, and there was nothing left for the machines to bob for. The pipes to the refinery and the shipping ports in Calves ton had run dry. Oh, there was still oil produced in Texas, and some of it even came from the Parker family oil company, but it was a trickle. Now the oil was shipped by truck to the refineries, and it was used only for the manufacture of chemicals and synthetics. Those oil fields that weren't given over to cattle were home to Nomad tribes. Or completely desolate. It wasn't over for the Parker family, though. Not by a long shot. The family had owned plenty of land, much of which was arable. Foresight had lead Trenton's father, Louis, to raise the capital to make an investment that many others had scoffed at. Five years ago, when the oil was still flowing, Louis Parker had set up a licensing agreement with the infant Italian genetic engineering firm, Biotechnica. Parker Petrochemicals had become the only company in the United States permitted to commercially grow the genetically-altered wheat Triticum vulgaris megasuavis, a high-sugar grain which was fermented and catalyzed to produce the synthetic alcohol fuel, CHOOH2. Trenton stopped at a barbed wire fence and leaned against a post. He pushed the brim of his Stetson up and surveyed the land before him. As far as he could see, it was covered with rolling waves of golden wheat. Ripples spread across die fields as the winded died over the low hills. Off in the distance a phalanx of combine harvesters rolled in a staggered line almost a kilometer across. Five years of waiting had finally paid off. The family had been losing money ever since buying the license to grow the grain. For awhile, it had looked like a monumental mistake. Land was being wasted, money had been spent, and equipment was idle. Suddenly, however, things had reversed themselves. After five years of hemming and hawing, Ford and General Motors both announced that they would begin manufacturing automobiles equipped with CHOOH2-burning engines. Toyota, Honda and many other automotive giants had soon followed suit. Research was under way into producing jet turbines that could burn the heavy alcohol, and shipbuilding companies were experimenting with it. Soon CHOOH2 would be to the world what gasoline, kerosene and a score of other fuels had been. And no one in the U.S. was producing it except for Parker Petrochemicals. Well, really his and Ellen's. Ellen Trieste was the woman who had provided much of the capital for the purchase of the Biotechnica license. The family hadn't enough assets to swing the deal by itself at the time. Louis Parker had persuaded Ellen Trieste to sink tens of millions of dollars into the deal. The license might allow Parker Petrochemical to grow T. megasuavis, but it was Trieste who had the true power of life and death over the company. With a word she could pull the license and plunge the family into bankruptcy. Not that she was likely to do it. Trieste was set to reap a huge return on the investment, and she was also a prime shareholder in the company.2010s
The war in the South China Sea came to an end. Petrochem had lost, and SovOil became the sole drilling power in the region and the world's largest producer of crude oil and crude oil products, bar none. Petrochem was not even close any more. Fortunately, they still had the worlds largest CHOOH2 production facilities and a great empire of chemical and materials research and fabrication facilities. The war had put a crimp in the company's fortunes, but not seriously. A few years of slow growth followed, as Petrochem recouped its financial and manpower losses. The war had not helped to ease the tensions between Trenton Parker and Ellen Trieste. Ellen had firmly supported the war, while Trenton had argued against it. For a while it looked like Trenton would reverse his losses and seize control of the company, but Trieste rallied her supporters and headed off a coup at the last instant. The animosity between the two shareholders grew, but neither was able to unseat the other completely. Nor was either willing to risk direct action against the other.2020s
Petrochem was now a major world force. It remained on the cutting edge of chemistry and materials research and production, and it was now the world's largest agricultural corporation and greatest producer of CHOOH2. Within the corporation, however, tensions had continued to rise between Trenton Parker's camp and that of Ellen Trieste and Angus Youngblood to the point that they were becoming critical. Each side was preparing for a war that could tear the company apart from the inside out. Intrigue and betrayal were rampant.2045
It was nicknamed "The AV Gas War" by the press during the conflict, but it's also been dubbed "the war within the war." Early in the 4th Corp War, Militech and Arasaka simultaneously realized that they were headed for a major clash, and began squirreling away ever more fuel to prepare. Then both Petrochem and SovOil cheerfully sold these Corporations almost their entire reserves of aviation fuel, realizing that doing so would cause the appearance of a shortage and allow them to adopt massive price increases with impunity. However, even with this unexpected windfall, Petrochem had its own problems to worry about with its far-flung assets vulnerable to attack. This resulted in a general mobilization of Petrochem's military assets. Some press outlets even noted that the American Midwest in this time became the most peaceful in decades, thanks to the preponderance of Petrochem security forces nervously patrolling the area. In the end, although they were never directly involved in the 4th Corp War, the need to protect their valuable wells and fields—as well as fight off sporadic SovOil attacks as opportunities presented themselves—drew so heavily on Petrochem that it entered the post-War period seriously depleted. With the collapse of most multinational fuel companies after the 4th Corp War, Petrochem is keeping the world running. Literally. They're the world's largest producer of CHOOH2 (under license), and control millions of acres of arable land across the un-incorporated United States—land chiefly used to grow the genetically altered wheat that is used to make the synthetic fuel known as CHOOH2. Petrochem is also one of the world's largest oil producers, but with the oil supply dwindling most remaining fossil fuels are used to make plastics and other synthetics. Petrochem also has more fertile oil fields than any other company. All of these assets are huge, and accordingly hard to protect from other companies that would like to usurp Petrochem's wealth. With such vast interests to protect—and due to recent loses to Continental Brands—Petrochem has invested huge amounts of money in protecting itself, maintaining an armed force worthy of a small country. Still chafing under its CHOOH2 license from Biotechnica, it's only a matter of time before Petrochem's wily CEO finds a way to absorb the smaller biotech company for good.Territories
Regional Offices: New York, Washington, Miami, Chicago, San Francisco, Tokyo, London, Hamburg, Paris, Rome. Oil fields in Many Canadian Territories, Texas, Alaska, California, and Antarctica. Agricultural areas in California and the Midwest and Southeast
Agriculture & Industry
CHOOH2
Petrochems bread and butter is CHOOH2, the synthetic alcohol that has become the world's standard combustible fuel. Although CHOOH2 was developed by the small Biotechnica Corporation, it is produced by many other companies throughout the world. Biotechnica lacks the giant agricultural and processing resources necessary to grow the genetically-altered wheat and yeast in significant amounts, and process the rough product into CHOOH2. Instead, Biotechnica licenses the rights to farm the patented organisms and refine the products to other companies. Since CHOOH2 is the world fuel standard, and is both patented and impossible to produce without the engineered plants, these licenses are incredibly valuable. Corporations around the world bid against one another when the licenses become available. Bids in hard Eurodollars often rocket into the billions, and more than one corporate war has erupted over the licenses.PetroChemicals
Organic chemical engineering technology had progressed considerably by the 2020s, and many petrochemically-derived materials have been replaced by substances that can be produced without a hydrocarbon base. Certain applications still require substances that haven't yet been replaced, however. Petrochem is one of the companies that fills this niche, providing specialized petrochemicals and polymers for use in manufacturing, aerospace engineering and medical engineering.General Chemistry
Petrochem is one of the largest manufacturers of chemical products in the world. It has factories in many nations, devoted to making all kinds of chemical products from synthetic motor oil, to fertilizer, makeup components, pesticides, and food additives. Literally thousands of products roll out of Petrochem's labs and factories and into stores, homes, and other factories around the world. Relaxed pollution and environmental protection standards have made chemical products cheaper and easier to manufacture than ever before. Petrochem has also established hundreds of plants in Third World and economically-depressed countries where large, cheap labor pools and relaxed regulation standards make it possible for the company to manufacture record amounts of chemical products.Weapons
Exploiting the violent nature of the modern world, Petrochem also maintains a sizable department devoted to the development of chemical weapons, combat drugs and chemical explosives. Petrochem faces stiff competition from Militech in this department, but this has not stopped it from marketing a highly success-line of products to national and corporate armies across the globe. It has also not kept Militech from purchasing many products from Petrochem, including solid and liquid rocket propellants, advanced materials for the components of vehicles and weapons systems, and of course, CHOOH2 to run its vehicles. Petrochem has been at the forefront with the development of a line of lethal and incapacitating chemical weapons which act in seconds and then break down into harmless components within minutes of use, leaving the area safe for mop-up troops to move in with at requiring protective gear. They have also developed a line of "Selective Agents" designed to be ineffective against troops that have received a series of antidote treatments. This allows soldiers to fight without protection in a cloud lethal to their enemies, or to call down defensive chemical strikes on their own positions with- out fear for their lives. There have been one or two unfortunate incidents with defective antidote treatments, but they have not dampened overall enthusiasm for the products. Petrochem also bought the license to produce biological and viral agents developed by Biotechnica. Biotechnica is largely a development house, and it lacks the facilities for full-scale production of many of the items it creates. Because of the long, profitable relationship between the two corporations, Petrochem usually gets first crack at profitable licenses for Biotechnica weapons.Research and Development
Petrochem maintains a huge research and development budget, and it has several subsidiaries devoted entirely to the creation of new products which are then manufactured by other branches of the corporation. Petrochem labs register for thousands of patents every month. While it's true that only a few of those go on to be commercially viable products, it speaks of the huge funding and resources that the company is willing to invest in the expansion of its product line and information base. Petrochem labs currently work full-time on the development of advanced structural and electronic materials, drugs and pharmaceuticals, weapons, fuels and new recycling techniques. They recruit the best and the brightest of physical chemists, organic chemists, engineers, physicists, molecular biologists and bio- chemists. With the amount of talent at their disposal, it is not surprising that they produce a large number of the world's ground- breaking advances in the chemical and physical sciences. They also have labs and researchers working constantly on mechanical and geophysical advances for the petroleum drilling department. These are the researchers who created the methods and devices that allow Petrochem to exploit oil fields once thought to be inaccessible or depleted. They are also developing techniques for locating oil resources that have eluded discovery.
Founding Date
Late 1900s
Type
Corporation, Agriculture
Leader
Leader Title
Related Ranks & Titles
Notable Members
