Valero Energy Corporation

The story behind Valero is one unequaled in corporate America. Named for the mission San Antonio de Valero – the original name of the Alamo – Valero Energy Corporation was created on January 1, 1980, as the corporate successor to LoVaca Gathering Company, a subsidiary of the Coastal States Gas Corporation. Valero is the direct result of a $1.6 billion settlement approved unanimously in 1978 by the Texas Railroad Commission, the state’s natural gas regulatory agency, which ended more than six years of litigation brought against Coastal by its municipal gas customers who claimed they had been overcharged for natural gas.

Valero’s journey as a natural gas transportation company evolved in the mid-1980s when the company purchased a 50 percent interest in a Corpus Christi, Texas, refinery owned by Saber Energy. The operation began as nothing more than a vacuum unit and crude unit on a humble plot of land near the Corpus Christi Ship Channel. But in the years to follow, Valero amassed its “Refinery of the Future” and added 16 more refineries to the fold starting in 1997. Through these acquisitions, the company also branched into retail and wholesale markets and continues to operate under the Valero, Diamond Shamrock, Shamrock, Ultramar and Beacon brands.