Ashland Oil Inc

An impending tax ruling threatened to unravel a $3-billion deal in which Marathon Oil Corp. would consolidate ownership in Marathon Ashland Petroleum by buying Ashland Inc.'s interest. Ashland, which owns 38% of the gasoline refiner and marketer, said it feared that the ruling from the Internal Revenue Service could leave it with an unknown amount of tax liability for gains from the transaction. Ashland shares fell $1.03 a share to $56.67, and Houston-based Marathon fell 21 cents to $37.

The chairman and chief executive of chemical and motor oil seller Ashland Inc. decided to retire because he violated a company policy banning office relationships, a company spokesman said. Paul W. Chellgren, 59, announced Friday he would retire in November after working 28 years for the company that makes Valvoline motor oil, Zerex antifreeze and Eagle One car-care products.

Orin Atkins, the former chairman and chief executive of Ashland Oil Inc., pleaded guilty Thursday to charges that he tried to sell confidential company documents to an Iranian oil company involved in a dispute with Ashland. In announcing the plea, federal prosecutors said a seven-count indictment was brought against an attorney whose firm once worked for Ashland, for his alleged role in the scheme in which Atkins pleaded guilty. Atkins, 65, of North Palm Beach, Fla., pleaded guilty in U.S.

The wealthy Belzberg family of Canada today offered to acquire Ashland Oil Inc. for at least $60 a share, or about $1.56 billion. The offer came in a letter to Ashland Chairman John R. Hall from Samuel Belzberg, chairman of First City Financial Corp., the Belzberg family's principal holding company. Ashland had no immediate comment on the proposal, a spokeswoman said.

Ashland Inc. settled Federal Trade Commission charges that it misled consumers with ads touting the protection provided by the company's Valvoline TM8 engine treatment. The Russell, Ky.-based company agreed to limit advertising claims about the oil additive's ability to reduce engine-part wear. The settlement does not include a fine or an admission of wrongdoing. In July, Quaker State Corp.

USX Corp. and Ashland Inc. said Thursday that they will combine their oil-refining, marketing and transportation operations in a bid to cut costs in the competitive and profit-squeezed industry. The move is the latest by major oil firms to try to bolster results in refining and marketing. Shell Oil Co. and Texaco Inc., for example, recently announced a joint venture.

Los Angeles-based Unocal Corp. announced on Monday a "definitive agreement" to sell for $90 million most of its retail chemical distribution business to a subsidiary of a competitor, Ashland Oil Inc. The sale is part of a strategy Unocal announced last April to restructure by focusing on other core operations. The sale is scheduled to close Feb. 28, at which time Ashland will pay Unocal $85 million, with $5 million to come in future payments. Other terms were not disclosed.

In its latest move to trim and restructure, Los Angeles-based Unocal Corp. has agreed in principle to sell its retail chemical distribution business to competitor Ashland Oil Inc. The deal, details of which were still being worked out Friday, would transfer up to 21 metropolitan distribution centers as well as several deep-water marine terminals to Ashland at a reported price of more than $90 million. Unocal spokesman James H.

Mobil Corp. reported surprisingly strong third-quarter earnings Tuesday, but other major oil companies reported net income down because of lower crude oil and natural gas prices and poor demand for petroleum products because of the recession. Los Angeles-based Occidental Petroleum Corp. also reported strong third-quarter results, but they reflected one-time gains from the company's restructuring program.

Atlantic Richfield Co., citing depressed domestic gasoline and natural gas prices and lower chemical earnings, said Monday that its second-quarter earnings fell 37%. During the three-month period ended June 30, Arco earned $246 million on sales of $4.2 billion, compared to earnings of $391 million on revenue of about $4 billion in the comparable quarter of 1990. Earnings from gasoline sales declined partly because Arco was forced to cut its prices to generate demand, the company said.

The fuel tank collapse that caused the contamination of drinking water in three states stemmed from a dime-size flaw in the tank's nearly 50-year-old steel wall, Ashland Oil Inc. said. The 4-million-gallon storage tank near Pittsburgh, Pa., collapsed Jan. 2 as it was being filled with 3.8 million gallons of oil, spilling more than 700,000 gallons into the Monongahela River and then the Ohio River.

Seven barges carrying gasoline broke free from a towboat Sunday on the Ohio River and spilled an estimated 40,000 gallons of fuel into the river after striking a railroad bridge piling, officials said. Recovery of the gasoline was impossible because it had been diluted, said Rich Carter, assistant chief of the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Emergency Response. "No impact has been observed thus far," he said.

Texaco Inc. and Diamond Shamrock Inc. joined the list of big oil companies that recorded large fourth-quarter earnings increases, mostly because of higher energy prices resulting from the Persian Gulf conflict. But Ashland Oil Inc. reported a quarterly loss, attributing results to the high price its refineries had to pay for oil. Texaco said Wednesday that fourth-quarter earnings rose 35% to $388 million, compared to $287 million for the same period in 1989.