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Thursday, July 14, 2011

CHRONOLOGY-Big Oil's years of merger mania, (NYSE: COP), (BP)

ConocoPhillips' (COP.N) plan to split itself into two stand-alone public companies marks a reversal from a nearly 15-year trend of consolidation among big oil companies. Since the late 1990s, global oil companies have combined into a small group of huge players known as super majors. ConocoPhillips is the first of these to announce a plan to go in the other direction, as it bets that its production and refining arms would be worth more as separate companies. Below is a timeline of some of the major oil industry deals from the past decade and a half: December 1998: The U.S. Federal Trade Commission approves British Petroleum Co Plc's $55 billion acquisition of Amoco Corp. The new BP Amoco Plc became Britain's biggest company and the third-largest oil company in the world. The company is now BP Plc (BP.L).

ConocoPhillips is an international, integrated energy company. Shares of COP traded higher by 2.22% or $1.65/share to $76.05. In the past year, the shares have traded as low as $48.06 and as high as $81.80. On average, 8350620 shares of COP exchange hands on a given day and today's volume is recorded at 31186708.