ConocoPhillips

What does ConocoPhillips own?
ConocoPhillips owns oil and gas exploration and production assets across 14 countries, including shale positions in the Permian, Eagle Ford, and Bakken, Alaska's Kuparuk and Alpine fields and the Willow project under construction, Canadian oil sands, offshore and conventional assets in Norway, Malaysia, Libya, and China, and equity stakes in LNG ventures. It no longer owns the Conoco, Phillips 66, or 76 fuel brands, which belong to Phillips 66.

Is ConocoPhillips publicly traded?
Yes. ConocoPhillips trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker COP. It is a component of the S&P 500 and is owned broadly by institutional and retail investors, with index funds managed by Vanguard, BlackRock, and State Street among its largest holders.

Who founded ConocoPhillips?
ConocoPhillips was formed by merger in 2002 rather than founded by individuals. Its predecessor companies were founded by Isaac Elder Blake, who started Continental Oil in Ogden, Utah in 1875, and brothers L.E. and Frank Phillips, who founded Phillips Petroleum in Bartlesville, Oklahoma in 1917.

Where is ConocoPhillips headquartered?
ConocoPhillips is headquartered in Houston, Texas. Its largest operating subsidiary presence outside Houston is in Anchorage, Alaska, and it maintains offices and operating organizations across its 14 countries of activity.

How many brands does ConocoPhillips own?
Effectively one: the ConocoPhillips corporate brand itself. The consumer fuel brands historically associated with the company, Conoco, Phillips 66, 76, and JET, were transferred to Phillips 66 when the downstream business was spun off in May 2012. Marathon Oil survives as a subsidiary name after the 2024 acquisition but is being integrated operationally.

Who owns ConocoPhillips?
ConocoPhillips is owned by its public shareholders. No single investor or family controls the company, and the largest positions are held by index fund managers. Ryan Lance has served as chairman and CEO since 2012.

What is ConocoPhillips' revenue?
ConocoPhillips reported total revenues and other income of $61.5 billion for fiscal year 2025, up from $57.0 billion in 2024. Earnings were $8.0 billion and adjusted earnings were $7.7 billion for the year.

ConocoPhillips descends from two companies that each trace to the early American oil industry. Conoco began as the Continental Oil and Transportation Company, founded in Ogden, Utah in 1875 by Isaac Elder Blake to distribute oil products across the western territories. It later became part of Standard Oil, was spun out in the 1911 antitrust dissolution, and re-emerged as an independent integrated producer and refiner, adopting the Conoco name.

Phillips Petroleum was founded in 1917 in Bartlesville, Oklahoma by brothers L.E. and Frank Phillips, cattlemen who struck oil on family land and parlayed it into one of the largest independent oil companies in the country. Phillips developed natural gas liquids processing, pioneered the high-density polyethylene market with the invention of Marlex plastic in the 1950s, and built the Phillips 66 marketing brand, named in 1927 for U.S. Route 66.

The two companies merged on August 30, 2002 in a deal worth roughly $15 billion in stock, creating the third-largest U.S. oil company at the time. As an integrated major, ConocoPhillips operated refineries, pipelines, chemicals ventures, and thousands of Conoco, Phillips 66, and 76 branded stations. The 2006 acquisition of Burlington Resources for about $35 billion made it the largest North American natural gas producer of its era.

A strategic reset followed the 2008 financial crisis. ConocoPhillips sold billions in assets to repair its balance sheet, and in 2010 it began divesting downstream and non-core businesses. The decisive step came on May 1, 2012, when the company spun off its refining, marketing, chemicals, and midstream operations to shareholders as Phillips 66, a separate NYSE-listed company that retained the Conoco, Phillips 66, 76, and JET fuel brands. The remaining business renamed itself a pure exploration and production company, and Ryan Lance, who had run E&P planning, became chairman and CEO, a role he still holds in 2026.

The E&P-era ConocoPhillips grew through shale acquisition. It bought Concho Resources for $9.7 billion in an all-stock deal that closed in January 2021, significantly expanding its Permian position. In Alaska, its 2017 Willow discovery in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska became the centerpiece of its major-projects portfolio, receiving federal approval in 2023.

The largest recent transaction was the acquisition of Marathon Oil Corporation, announced in May 2024 in a deal valued at $22.5 billion including debt, which closed on November 22, 2024. Marathon added major positions in the Permian, Eagle Ford, Bakken, and Oklahoma SCOOP/STACK plays plus an integrated gas business in Equatorial Guinea. ConocoPhillips completed the integration during 2025, doubled its synergy capture to more than $1 billion on a run-rate basis, and began a portfolio-highgrading disposition program that closed $3.2 billion of asset sales during the year toward a $5 billion target by year-end 2026.

In 2025 the company also announced a 20 to 25 percent reduction of its global workforce, including employees and contractors, with most of the cuts completed during the year. Headcount stood at approximately 9,900 at December 31, 2025. Despite the restructuring, full-year production rose to a record 2,375 MBOED, and the company laid out a 2026 plan targeting another $1 billion in capital and cost reductions while returning 45 percent of cash flow from operations to shareholders.

ConocoPhillips operates in the industry with the most contested sustainability position in the economy, and its disclosures reflect that. The company publishes annual sustainability reporting with Scope 1 and 2 emissions intensity targets, a goal of reaching net-zero operational emissions by mid-century, and participation in initiatives such as the Oil and Gas Methane Partnership. It has announced a target to reduce operated gross Scope 1 and 2 emissions intensity by 50 to 60 percent from a 2016 baseline by 2030.

These are corporate commitments rather than independent certifications; the company holds no B Corp or equivalent status, as is standard for oil producers. Its climate posture is framed around emissions intensity per barrel rather than absolute production reduction, since the strategy is to produce oil and gas within carbon budgets rather than exit the business.

The company's most material sustainability and governance debate is the Willow project on Alaska's North Slope, which has drawn sustained opposition from environmental organizations and litigation seeking to block or limit it, while enjoying support from Alaska's bipartisan political delegation and many North Slope stakeholders who cite jobs and revenue. ConocoPhillips agreed to a reduced development footprint of three drill sites and relinquished rights to roughly 68,000 acres of adjacent leases as part of the 2023 federal approval.

ConocoPhillips ranks consistently in the upper tier of the Fortune 500 and appears on Forbes' Global 2000 list of the world's largest public companies. It is regularly cited among the most admired energy companies in Fortune's World's Most Admired Companies survey and has received industry recognition for operational safety and for its North Slope operations, which have run without the catastrophic incidents associated with some earlier Alaskan developments.

The Willow project is the central controversy attached to the company. Approved by the Biden administration in March 2023 in a reduced three-pad configuration, the project attracted millions of public comments and organized opposition over its projected cumulative emissions, with critics characterizing it as inconsistent with climate targets. Litigation challenging the federal approval continued after construction began, and the project remains a national flashpoint for U.S. oil-and-climate policy even as it has majority support within Alaska and is expected to start production in 2029.

In September 2025 the company announced a workforce reduction of 20 to 25 percent of global employees and contractors, equivalent to roughly 2,600 to 3,250 positions from a workforce of about 13,000 before the cuts. The majority of the reductions were completed in 2025. In Alaska, where about 10 to 12.5 percent of North Slope positions were cut, a group of employees at the Kuparuk, Alpine, and Willow fields petitioned the National Labor Relations Board to unionize with the United Steelworkers, citing staffing and pay concerns after the reorganization.

ConocoPhillips is also a defendant in climate-liability litigation brought by U.S. states and municipalities seeking damages tied to historical fossil fuel production and alleged deception about climate risks, litigation that is proceeding through state and federal courts industry-wide without final resolution. The company has been fined periodically for environmental violations at operating sites, including Clean Air Act settlements in past years, and continues to manage legacy remediation obligations from predecessor operations.