upply and were severely hurt. They found relief in crude oil deposits in Kuwait and Iraq. They also moved in to the lubricant industry in Dunkirk. Years later the company would develop its first multigrade oil. Adding to their list of well-recognized products and expanding their brand. Later though BP success would be in Alaska not the Middle East. They discovered huge amounts of oilfields in the permafrost of Alaska. When they realized what they had they sold interest to an U.S. refinery. They sold it to a former Standard Oil Trust company called Sohio or later on Boron. BP invested in the company and had 25% of Sohio’s equity in 1978. Like the other oil companies in the 1970’s BP had shocks of its own. They felt the effects of the price of oil in the 70’s too. The world’s economy all felt the effects of this serious oil price increase. The 1970’s also produced the forming of the oil countries to what is known as OPEC. BP lost much of its suppliers to OPEC countries. OPEC took control of production and prices, which caused the crisis. BP demand had fallen since the oil crisis and their sales were way down. But BP had an advantage over other competitors because they had invested in countries outside what eventually became OPEC. They had the competitive advantage over others because they earlier focused on Alaska and the North Sea. They invested more then other companies and where able to survive.In 1987 the company made an offer to buy the rest of the Sohio Company for 4.7 billion pounds. (BP Official Website) With this purchase they had entered the U.S. market and formed the new company BP America. This gave BP access to the biggest market in the world. If BP wanted to compete with the big industries of Exxon, Mobil and Chevron it had to enter the U.S. market. Also on BP side, Sohio had a huge amount of cash flow. BP ended up with one-third of its assets in the U.S.BP biggest problem was they needed to div...
