Mobil Oil Corp

IRS Targets Mobil: Mobil Oil Corp. said the Internal Revenue Service wants to tax an extra $2 billion in income from sales it made years ago. An analyst said the taxes could total $800 million. To contain oil prices during the 1979 Iranian revolution, Saudi Arabia asked the firms that once owned the Arabian American Oil Co.--Mobil, Exxon, Chevron and Texaco--to buy its crude at as much as $6 below the then-market price of $34 a barrel, and to pass that savings along to their affiliates.

A former Mobil Oil Corp. executive was sentenced to 46 months in prison for evading taxes on $7 million in secret payments, including a kickback prosecutors say he got for helping Mobil buy a share of a Kazakhstan oil field. J. Bryan Williams, 63, admitted in June that he didn't tell his employer or U.S. tax authorities about $7 million he got from "people, organizations and governments with whom I did business on Mobil's behalf." Mobil, a unit of Irving, Texas-based Exxon Mobil Corp.

The Los Angeles city attorney's office filed misdemeanor criminal charges Friday against Mobil Oil Corp. for failing to adequately monitor and maintain its pipelines, leading to two ruptures a year ago that spilled more than 130,000 gallons of crude oil into sewers and the Los Angeles River.

A former Mobil Oil Corp. executive pleaded guilty to tax evasion for not reporting $7 million in secret payments, including a $2-million kickback he allegedly got for helping Mobil buy part of an oil field in Kazakhstan. The plea in federal court in Manhattan by J. Bryan Williams of McLean, Va., is the first to come from a probe of an alleged scheme to bribe Kazakh leaders for oil rights.

Responding to community concern over a plan to remove gasoline and waste oil from beneath a service station near two schools and several residences, a Mobil Oil Corp. official said Thursday the company will delay its abatement plan until community members' questions are fully answered. The gasoline and oil apparently leaked into the soil from underground storage tanks at a Mobil gas station at Moorpark Street and Fulton Avenue.

State officials said Monday that they will delay filing a massive lawsuit against Mobil Oil Corp. in hopes the company will agree to pay a large sum in damages for an oil spill in Valencia that fouled the Santa Clara River. The state attorney general's office was expected to sue Mobil before the anniversary of the pipeline spill--which occurred Jan. 31, 1991, a year ago Friday--to avoid problems with a one-year statute of limitations.

Mobil Oil Corp. has set a record for campaign spending in Torrance, so far paying more than $360,000 in the hope of defeating a March 6 ballot measure that would eliminate the use of hydrofluoric acid at its refinery there. Mobil has said a conversion to less volatile sulfuric acid would cost $100 million. The oil company has far outspent supporters of the measure, who reported $7,600 in expenditures through Feb. 17.

The City Council unanimously approved licenses for Mobil Oil Corp. to install four wells on city property. The wells will monitor ground water for possible contamination by petroleum products leaking from its refinery. Mobil already has three wells along Del Amo Boulevard.

Mobil Reorganizes International Units: The Fairfax, Va., oil company said the move will realign its worldwide refining, marketing and trade activities into three regional units: the Americas, the Pacific Rim, and Europe and Africa. Its existing Middle East and Marine Transportation unit, which oversees about a dozen joint ventures, will not be affected. The operations included in the three new regions currently are managed by Thomas C.

A former Mobil Oil Corp. executive will plead guilty to federal tax evasion charges accusing him of failing to report a $2-million kickback he allegedly got for helping Mobil buy into a Kazakhstan oil field, his lawyer said. J. Bryan Williams' plea, scheduled for next week in Manhattan federal court, would be the first in a U.S. probe of an alleged scheme to bribe Kazakh leaders to win oil rights in the Central Asian nation. Mobil, a unit of Exxon Mobil Corp., also is under investigation.

The U.S. government is investigating the role of Mobil Corp. in a scheme to bribe leaders of Kazakhstan in return for oil rights in the central Asian nation, a prosecutor said. Assistant U.S. Atty. Peter Neiman made his remarks during the arraignment of a New York businessman who was indicted on charges funneling more than $78 million to senior Kazakhstan officials in exchange for lucrative oil consulting business. A spokesman for Mobil parent Exxon Mobil Corp.

An environmental group filed a lawsuit Tuesday against more than a dozen major oil companies, accusing them of allowing dangerous chemicals to contaminate the state's water supply. Communities for a Better Environment alleges in the suit that the companies allowed chemicals such as toluene and benzene to enter the water supply from underground storage tanks, refineries and service stations.

Exxon Corp. and Mobil Corp. agreed Tuesday to a record $75.3-billion merger that will change the oil industry as much as the companies themselves and will face a rigorous regulatory review that is likely to force the sale of assets. The marriage of Exxon and Mobil, the No. 1 and No. 2 U.S. oil companies, would create a host of superlatives--biggest merger, biggest publicly traded oil company and world's biggest corporation.

Exxon Corp. and Mobil Corp., the nation's No. 1 and No. 2 oil companies, confirmed Friday that they are discussing a merger, sending their stock and the shares of other oil companies higher on hopes that the pair will make it to the altar followed by many others in the price-shocked oil industry. An Exxon-Mobil matchup, with combined 1997 revenue of $203.

Will the consequences be good or bad for consumers if the oil giants Exxon and Mobil combine to produce the largest nongovernment oil company? Is sheer size a threat or a boon? Would the new company ensure a secure supply of energy at reasonable prices or hold the world ransom? Those questions are posed by reports Wednesday of merger negotiations between Exxon Corp. and Mobil Corp.

Responding to community concern over a plan to remove gasoline and waste oil from beneath a service station near two schools and several residences, a Mobil Oil Corp. official said Thursday the company will delay its abatement plan until community members' questions are fully answered. The gasoline and oil apparently leaked into the soil from underground storage tanks at a Mobil gas station at Moorpark Street and Fulton Avenue.

A welder died Tuesday in a fall from an elevated tank under construction at the Mobil Oil Corp. refinery in Torrance. Peter J. Foley, 24, of Goleta was pronounced dead at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center after efforts to revive him failed, Torrance Fire Marshal Denny Haas said. Foley suffered an apparent skull fracture after falling about 35 feet, Haas said. The cause of the fall was not known. Foley was employed by KCI Constructors Inc.

Concerned parents, school officials and property owners packed the auditorium Thursday at St. Francis De Sales School to question state environmental officials about their plans to remove gasoline and waste oil from beneath a nearby gas station. The gasoline and oil apparently leaked into the soil and ground water from two underground storage tanks at a Mobil service station at Moorpark Street and Fulton Avenue, said South Coast Air Quality Management District officials. Mobil Oil Corp.