Petrochem

"Petrochem's bread and butter is CHOOH2, the synthetic alcohol that has become the world's standard combustible fuel; they are responsible for 60% of world supplies."

- Corporation Report 2020 Volume 3

Petrochemical Associates International is a megacorporation whose primary focus is the petrochemical industry. Petrochem is the world's largest producer of the synthetic alcohol fuel CHOOH2, the primary fuel source for the mid-21st century, and will do anything in it's power to maintain the fuel's and thus itself dominance on the world stage.

Petrochem was a key player in the Second Corporate War, where it fought against - and lost to - SovOil.

Overview
With the col-lapse of most national oil companies after the 4th Corp War, Petrochem is keeping the world running, literally. They are the world's largest producer of CHOOH2™ (under license), and control millions of acres of arable land across the United States— land used to grow the genetically altered wheat that is used to make CHOOH2™. Petrochem is also one of the world’s largest oil producers. With the oil sup-ply dwindling, most remaining fossil fuels are used to make plastics and other synthetics,and Petrochem has more fertile oilfields than any other company. All of these assets are huge, and accordingly hard to protect from other companies that would like to usurp Petrochem’s wealth. With such vast interests to protect, Petrochem invests huge amounts of money in protecting itself, maintaining an armed force worthy of a small country. Still chafing under its CHOOH2™ license to Biotechnica, it’s only a matter of time before Petrochem’s wily CEO finds a way to absorb the smaller biotech company for good.

2004
Trenton Parker strode across the desert. All around him stood monuments to his family's former glory. The giant oil pumps dotted the plain for miles around. Once they had all dipped their heads in cease-less, coordinated rhythm, pumping precious oil from the depths of the Earth; a field of enormous metal birds, bobbing in an endless orgy of feeding. Once Trenton had thought the feeding would never end. The machines would churn into eternity, drawing fossil fuels from some endless reservoir that would never run dry. He had been young and ignorant then, living off the fat of a family that had grown accustomed to an uninterrupted income of staggering proportions.

One by one, over the years, the machines had ground to a halt.The oil had disappeared, and there was nothing left for the machines to bob for. The pipes to the refinery and the shipping ports in Calves ton had run dry. Oh, there was still oil produced in Texas, and some of it even came from the Parker family oil company, but it was a trickle. Now the oil was shipped by truck to the refineries, and it was used only for the manufacture of chemicals and synthetics. Those oil fields that weren't given over to cattle were home to Nomad tribes. Or completely desolate.

It wasn't over for the Parker family, though. Not by a long shot.The family had owned plenty of land, much of which was arable.Foresight had lead Trenton's father, Louis, to raise the capital to make an investment that many others had scoffed at. Five years ago, when the oil was still flowing, Louis Parker had set up a licensing agreement with the infant Italian genetic engineering firm, Biotechnica. Parker Petrochemicals had become the only company in the United States permitted to commercially grow the genetically-altered wheat Triticum vulgaris megasuavis,a high-sugar grain which was fermented and catalyzed to produce the synthetic alcohol fuel, CHOOH2.

Trenton stopped at a barbed wire fence and leaned against a post.He pushed the brim of his Stetson up and surveyed the land before him. As far as he could see, it was covered with rolling waves of golden wheat. Ripples spread across die fields as the winded died over the low hills. Off in the distance a phalanx of combine harvesters rolled in a staggered line almost a kilometer across.

Five years of waiting had finally paid off. The family had been losing money ever since buying the license to grow the grain. For awhile, it had looked like a monumental mistake. Land was being wasted, money had been spent, and equipment was idle. Suddenly, however, things had reversed themselves. After five years of hemming and hawing, Ford and General Motors both announced that they would begin manufacturing automobiles equipped with CHOOH2-burning engines. Toyota, Honda and many other automotive giants had soon followed suit. Research was under way into producing jet turbines that could burn the heavy alcohol, and shipbuilding companies were experimenting with it. Soon CHOOH2 would be to the world what gasoline, kerosene and a score of other fuels had been. And no one in the U.S. was producing it except for Parker Petrochemicals.

Well, really his and Ellen's. Ellen Trieste was the woman who had provided much of the capital for the purchase of the Biotechnica license. The family hadn't enough assets to swing the deal by itself at the time. Louis Parker had persuaded Ellen Trieste to sink tens of millions of dollars into the deal. The license might allow Parker Petrochemical to grow T. megasuavis, but it was Trieste who had the true power of life and death over the company. With a word she could pull the license and plunge the family into bankruptcy. Not that she was likely to do it. Trieste was set to reap a huge return on the investment, and she was also a prime shareholder in the company.

2010
The war in the South China Sea came to an end. Petrochem had lost, and SovOil became the sole drilling power in the region and the world's largest producer of crude oil and crude oil products,bar none. Petrochem was not even close any more. Fortunately,they still had the worlds largest CHOOH2 production facilities and a great empire of chemical and materials research and fabrication facilities. The war had put a crimp in the company's fortunes,but not seriously. A few years of slow growth followed, as Petrochem recouped its financial and manpower losses.

The war had not helped to ease the tensions between Trenton Parker and Ellen Trieste. Ellen had firmly supported the war,while Trenton had argued against it. For a while it looked like Trenton would reverse his losses and seize control of the company,but Trieste rallied her supporters and headed off a coup at the last instant. The animosity between the two shareholders grew, but neither was able to unseat the other completely. Nor was either willing to risk direct action against the other.

2020
Petrochem is now a major world force. It remains on the cutting edge of chemistry and materials research and production, and it is now the world's largest agricultural corporation and greatest producer of CHOOH2. From the outside, the corporation appears stable.

Within the corporation, however, things are not so rosy. The tension between Trenton Parker's camp and Ellen Trieste and Angus Youngblood is becoming critical. Each side is preparing for a war that could tear the company apart from the inside out. Intrigue and betrayal are rampant.

Products
Petrochems bread and butter is CHOOH2, the synthetic alcohol that has become the world's standard combustible fuel. Although CHOOH2 was developed by the small Biotechnica Corporation,it is produced by many other companies throughout the world. Biotechnica lacks the giant agricultural and processing resources necessary to grow the genetically-altered wheat and yeast in significant amounts, and process the rough product into CHOOH2. Instead, Biotechnica licenses the rights to farm the patented organisms and refine the products to other companies. Since CHOOH2 is the world fuel standard, and is both patented and impossible to produce without the engineered plants, these licenses are incredibly valuable. Corporations around the world bid against one another when the licenses become available. Bids in hard Eurodollars often rocket into the billions, and more than one corporate war has erupted over the licenses.

CHOOH2 is a modified, synthetic grain alcohol produced by catalyzing the raw product created by Biotechnica's genetically-engineered organisms. It burns more rapidly and at a higher temperature than most other alcohols, making it much more suitable for use as a fuel. Different catalyzing processes result in several isomers and molecular weights in the molecule.These various types of CHOOH2 are used in different kinds of engines. Lighter varieties fuel internal combustion engines, intermediate versions find their way into jet engines and turbine engines, and heavy versions power ships and electrical generators. All of the molecules have the same proportion of elements, and all have two, four or six of the patented CHOOH groups on them. Mixtures of the weights are used for special applications. Any CHOOH2 engine will burn any variety of the fuel, but each works most efficiently with the correct weight.

PetroChemicals
Organic chemical engineering technology has progressed considerably in the last two decades, and many petrochemically-derived materials have been replaced by substances that can be produced without a hydrocarbon base. Certain applications still require substances that haven't yet been replaced, however. Petrochem is one of the companies that fills this niche, providing specialized petrochemicals and polymers for use in manufacturing, aerospace engineering and medical engineering.

General Chemistry
Petrochem is one of the largest manufacturers of chemical products in the world. It has factories in many nations, devoted to making all kinds of chemical products from synthetic motor oil, to fertilizer, makeup components, pesticides, and food additives. Literally thousands of products roll out of Petrochem's labs and factories and into stores, homes, and other factories around the world. Relaxed pollution and environmental protection standards have made chemical products cheaper and easier to manufacture than ever before. Petrochem has also established hundreds of plants in Third World and economically-depressed countries where large, cheap labor pools and relaxed regulation standards make it possible for the company to manufacture record amounts of chemical products.

Food
Petrochem owns a huge fraction of the world's arable land. The corporation uses most of it for CHOOH2 production but some of it is devoted to other crops. Most of the time, Petrochem has a surplus of T. megasuavis, the wheat that produces CHOOH2,so planting more of it than necessary only serves to cut the price of the grain. Some of the land isn't even suitable for growing wheat, and must be used for other crops. Consequently, Petrochem puts its extra land to use by growing a variety of dedicated food and textile crops. Corn, beans, fruits, potatoes, soy,cotton and rice arc all grown in large quantity by the corporation. As part of its agricultural interests, Petrochem also has large herds of beef and dairy cattle in the United States and South America, and poultry farms around the world. It even maintains fish ranches and aquaculture projects, although these represent a tiny part of the company's empire.

Petrochem's food products are shipped around the world for wholesale and retail distribution. Most of the agricultural products are sold under the name of the corporation's agricultural subsidiary, Continental Farms Agricorp. Continental Agricorp was created solely as a marketing move, since it was felt that people would react badly to food products sold under the name Petrochem. Petrochem's ownership of Continental Agricorp is not a secret, but that one step of removal is all that is necessary to appease the consumers. The company even owns an exclusive, suburban health-food chain called Good Earth Foods, but GoodEarth goes out of the way to cover its link to Continental Agricorp and Petrochem. By virtue of Petrochem's huge holdings, Conti-nental is one of the largest agricorps in the world.

The XOMA Corporation
Petrochem has a variety of subsidiaries devoted to a number of specialized chemical research and manufacturing applications. Xoma Corporation is the most important of these subsidiaries. Xoma (pronounced "zoma") is responsible for the development and manufacture of Petrochem's extensive line of pharmaceutical products. Xoma is a world leader in the development of new drugs. They have created vaccinations and treatments for ailments as wide as AIDS, schizophrenia, cyber psychosis, and athlete's foot. The subsidiary attracts many of the best and the bright-est of the physical chemistry, organic chemistry, biochemistry and molecular biology fields. Xoma's labs are highly proprietary, and commandeer some of Petrochem's toughest security. They are currently branching into genetic drugs and custom bacteria and viral development programs in a cooperative venture with Petrochem's ally, Biotechnica.

Public Relations
Like most corporations in 2020, Petrochem uses high-visibility tactics to keep its name and logo in the public consciousness. CHOOH4U stops are a major factor in the corporation's visibility as every station sports the company logo. Television and magazine ads plug the wide variety of services and products offered by the corporation, while at the same time, enormous lighted billboards and signs tower over the business districts of many major cities.

Petrochem's food production division is a major public relations boon. The corporation has an ongoing program under which it distributes surplus food stocks to poverty-stricken urban areas and grain to famine-stricken countries. The amounts are small compared the to corporation's overall bud-get, but they serve their purpose as far as public opinion is concerned.

Notable Employees

 * Louis Parker
 * Trenton Parker
 * Ellen Trieste
 * Angus Youngblood
 * Malcolm Youngblood
 * Rita Redhawk
 * Marshall Rock Shepard
 * Andrew Weyland

Weapons

 * Arasaka WSA Autopistol - Purchased but not produced by Petrochem
 * Colt Enforcement 10 sidearm - Purchased but not produced by Petrochem
 * Arasaka WAA Bullpup Assault Weapon - Purchased but not produced by Petrochem
 * Colt M-18 Assault Weapon - Purchased but not produced by Petrochem
 * Arasaka WMA "Minami 10" - Purchased but not produced by Petrochem
 * Mustangarms ARS-5C - Purchased but not produced by Petrochem
 * Mustangarms Raider Riot Shotgun - Purchased but not produced by Petrochem

Vehicles

 * IEC OIl. Tanker Submarine - Purchased but not produced by Petrochem
 * Shirakawa Research Industries Submersibles - Purchased but not produced by Petrochem
 * Shirakawa Type 1 - small submersible, Purchased but not produced by Petrochem
 * Shirakawa Type 2 - medium submersible, Purchased but not produced by Petrochem
 * Shirakawa Type 3 - large submersible, Purchased but not produced by Petrochem

Miscellaneous

 * Ballistex Marine Survival Vest - Purchased but not produced by Petrochem
 * Wellington Ltd. Heavy Divesuit - Purchased but not produced by Petrochem
 * Paracaine
 * Pariapan Spray