Hess Corporation

Hess Corporation was a U.S.-based petroleum company, headquartered in New York City, and known for its holiday toy trucks and once-familiar chain of gas stations and convenience stores along the East Coast. Over the course of a century, it grew from two companies involved in oil exploration and regional fuel delivery and refining into a global oil and natural gas producer. In 2025, Chevron (CVX) acquired Hess in a $53 billion deal, drawn largely by its stake in Guyana’s Stabroek Block—one of the world’s most significant offshore oil discoveries.

A history of Hess

The company that would become Hess Corporation was incorporated in 1920 as Amerada Corporation, an independent oil exploration company. After a merger with one of its subsidiaries in 1941, it became Amerada Petroleum Corporation, and later, in 1969, merged with Hess Oil and Chemical Corporation, founded by Leon Hess in 1933. The resulting company was named Amerada Hess Corporation, and for decades it operated as a fully integrated oil business, involved in everything from oil production and refining to gasoline marketing and transportation.

Amerada Hess grew its presence in the energy market both domestically and internationally. It invested in offshore and onshore exploration, operated one of the world’s largest refineries in the U.S. Virgin Islands (through HOVENSA, a joint venture), and ran an extensive network of Hess-branded gas stations and convenience stores, becoming a household name not just for fuel but also for its popular line of holiday toy trucks, a tradition that began in 1964.

By the early 2000s, the company had become more widely known simply as “Hess,” and on May 3, 2006, it formally adopted the name Hess Corporation. The name change formalized the name already used in its retail and refining businesses. The company subsequently adopted the ticker symbol HES on the New York Stock Exchange.

From gas stations to oil exploration

For much of the 20th century, Hess was a familiar name at the pump. But in the early 2010s, the company began a sweeping transformation. It sold off its terminal, energy marketing, and retail businesses, including its network of gas stations.

In 2014, Hess sold its retail division to Marathon Petroleum’s (MPC) Speedway unit. By 2017, all Hess-branded gas stations and stores had been renamed or sold. The once-prominent green-and-white signage disappeared from roadways, and the company exited the retail gasoline market entirely.

With the sale, Hess operated solely as an oil and natural gas exploration and production company. Its business included significant assets in the Bakken shale of North Dakota, the Gulf of Mexico, and Southeast Asia, with growing interest in Suriname and especially Guyana, where a major discovery would soon reshape the company’s future.

The Guyana discovery

Hess’s most valuable asset was its 30% stake in the Stabroek Block, a massive offshore oil field off the coast of Guyana operated by Exxon Mobil (XOM). Discovered in the mid-2010s, the field contains more than 11 billion barrels of oil, making it one of the largest finds in the world in the 21st century.

In addition to Exxon, which holds a 45% stake and leads drilling and production operations, the Stabroek consortium includes China’s CNOOC, with the remaining 25%. As of 2025, production in the region had reached roughly 650,000 barrels a day, with plans to nearly double that to 1.2 million barrels a day by 2027—a scale that would make Guyana one of the top offshore oil producers globally, surpassing countries like Mexico and Norway.

For Hess, Guyana became its crown jewel—its fastest-growing asset and a central reason behind its rising market value.

The Chevron acquisition

In October 2023, Chevron announced plans to acquire Hess Corporation in an all-stock deal valued at $53 billion. The move was widely seen as a strategic bet on Hess’s 30% stake in the Stabroek Block. With production ramping up and long-term prospects strong, the acquisition was expected to bolster Chevron’s growth outlook through the 2030s.

But the deal ran into resistance from Exxon, which invoked its preemption rights, clauses in the joint operating agreement that could allow it to match Chevron’s offer and assume Hess’s interest. A months-long arbitration followed, with Exxon, CNOOC, and Chevron presenting their cases before a tribunal of the International Chamber of Commerce.

On July 18, 2025, the arbitration panel ruled in Chevron’s favor, rejecting Exxon’s claim and clearing the way for the deal to close. Just hours after the decision, Chevron completed the acquisition, and Hess Corporation ceased to exist as an independent company.

Its former CEO, John B. Hess, was nominated to Chevron’s board of directors following the resolution of a separate regulatory issue with the Federal Trade Commission.

The Hess legacy

Although the Hess name no longer appears on oil rigs or gas stations, its status as a slice of Americana lives on, largely due to the company’s long-running toy truck tradition. The promotion has since grown into a phenomenon, and the toys are prized among collectors. Even after the company exited the retail gasoline business in 2014 and was acquired by Chevron in 2025, the line of Hess toy trucks has continued through a family-run business and online store.

Hess’s role in Guyana’s rise as a major oil producer became the company’s most lasting contribution to the energy industry.