Petrochem

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 (under license from Biotechnica), the primary fuel source for the mid-21st century. Petrochem control millions of acres of arable land across the NUSA. They are also one of the world's largest oil producers next to SovOil. With the oil supply 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.

2000s
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 was now a major world force. It remained on the cutting edge of chemistry and materials research and production, and it was now the world's largest agricultural corporation and greatest producer of CHOOH2. Within the corporation, however, tensions had risen. Between Trenton Parker's camp and Ellen Trieste and Angus Youngblood was becoming critical. Each side was preparing for a war that could tear the company apart from the inside out. Intrigue and betrayal were rampant.

2045
Although Petrochem were never directly involved in the Fourth Corporate War, the need to protect their valuable wells and fields, as well as fight off sporadic SovOil attacks as opportunities presented themselves, drew so heavily on the corporation that it entered the post-War period seriously depleted. With the collapse of most multinational fuel companies after War, Petrochem kept the world running. With such vast interests to protect, and due to the loses to Continental Brands, Petrochem had invested huge amounts of money in protecting itself, maintaining an armed force worthy of a small country. Still chafing under its CHOOH2 license from Biotechnica, it was only a matter of time before Petrochem's wily CEO found a way to absorb the smaller biotech company for good.

2077
In 2077, Petrochem remained the largest producer of CHOOH2.

CHOOH2
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.

Farms and Refineries
The essential raw ingredient of CHOOH2 is a bioengineered, high-sugar wheat that is grown on enormous that is grown in many countries. Rolling hills covered with grain have replaced oil fields, and enormous CHOOH2 catalyzing plants have been built on the foundations of refineries worldwide, with fermentation and yeast vats standing where oil tanks once dominated. Double hulled tankers now carry the raw stages and finished product across the oceans, from farms to refiners and from refineries to customers. Enormous pipelines span continents, keeping the essential fuel flowing from the refineries and ships into the vehicles of the world's population.

Petrochem and its subsidiaries have millions of acres of farm land in the U.S. alone, and millions more overseas, all devoted to the CHOOH2 wheat. The corporation oversees the harvesting of the wheat and its fermentation and refinement at many facilities around the world. Petrochem farms and refineries are a universally common sight, and the Petrochem CHOOH4U fuel stops are ubiquitous along the highways, and in the cities, of the world. Petrochem also wholesales CHOOH2 to other fuel-station operators. It does this to camouflage its monopoly from an American population that is suspicious of the enormous trusts that dominate 21 st century commerce. It's a sure bet, however, that any fuel you buy in the U.S. comes from a Petrochem-owned farm via a Petrochem-owned refinery. It is quite possible that fuel bought overseas comes from the same source.

CHOOH2 wheat is also edible, and as it happens, quite tasty when made into breads and other grain products. A good harvest sometimes leads to a surplus of grain. When this happens, Petrochem sells the grain to food manufacturers or countries in need of food relief. Occasionally, as a public relations move, Petrochem will donate the grain to famine-stricken nations. Ironically, because of the licensing agreements, no companies can afford to grow T. Megasuavis for food purposes. Biotechnica and Petrochem have both taken legal steps against corporations and nations that illegally grow the hardy grain, and Petrochem has been known to use military action to enforce legal judgments.

CHOOH2 Technology
Petrochem produces CHOOH2 processing and refining technology for export and for its own use. Since Petrochem was the first corporation to market CHOOH2 on a large scale, it developed much of the technology used in the production and refining of the fuel. Many overseas CHOOH2 companies buy their own processing equipment from Petrochem. They may not have a worldwide monopoly on the fuel, but Petrochem does make sure that it extracts its pound of flesh for the patented fermentation and refining equipment. A notable exception to this is SovOil, which produces its own CHOOH2 equipment rather than buying it from Petrochem. Since Petrochem's techniques are patented, SovOil developed a system which uses a different process. It is more unwieldy than the Petrochem process, and it produces fuel with more impurities in it, but CHOOH2 isn't a major product for SovOil, and the Soviet corporation is willing to make some concessions to avoid giving Petrochem any business.

Petrochem also cooperates with firms such as IEC and Militech in the development of new CHOOH2-fueled engines and power systems. The more systems that rely on CHOOH2, the more of the fuel Petrochem will sell. Currently, projects are in the works to develop more powerful and more efficient CHOOH2 engines and to develop CHOOH2 replacements for gasoline-based weapons such as Napalm and flamethrowers. So far, the higher burning temperature of hydrocarbon products has made CHOOH2 versions of these weapons less desirable. A CHOOH2 thermal weapon does only sixty percent of the damage of a comparably-sized Napalm weapon. Research continues, however, and Petrochem is confident that they'll have competitive CHOOH2 explosive and incendiary systems on the market within a couple of years.

Oil
Only two companies still pump measurable amounts of crude oil in 2020. By far, the leader is SovOil, which sits on top of the world's largest remaining oil reserves. Although its oil resources are only a fraction of SovOil's, Petrochem is the only other world power in petrochemicals. With the advent of CHOOH2, oil is rarely burned for fuel outside of the Soviet Union, but it is still a key raw material for the production of synthetic materials and many chemical and pharmaceutical products. Petrochem has active oil pumping operations in Canada, Texas, Alaska, California and South America. The only sizable fields are off of the California coast and in Alaska. Most of the other fields are active only because Petrochem has developed new technologies which allow it to extract oil from fields previously thought to have been tapped out. Petrochem is ceaselessly exploring the world for undiscovered oil reserves, competing with its old adversary SovOil for the few fertile deposits remaining. The company still stings from its loss to SovOil in the war over the massive South China Sea fields, and the management longs for another find of a similar size.

Petrochem has a few oil refineries in the U.S., South America and Western Europe. These refineries process crude oil into chemical components that are shipped to factories and labs for use in the manufacture of plastics, chemicals and other products. As oil becomes scarcer, oil-derived products go up in price. Although they account for only a small percentage of its output, Petrochem makes substantial amounts of money off of oil and coal-based chemicals and materials. Another major fossil fuel find could increase the corporation's wealth immeasurably.

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 Good Earth goes out of the way to cover its link to Continental Agricorp and Petrochem. By virtue of Petrochem's huge holdings, Continental 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 brightest 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.

Weapons
Exploiting the violent nature of the modern world, Petrochem also maintains a sizable department devoted to the development of chemical weapons, combat drugs and chemical explosives. Petrochem faces stiff competition from Militech in this department, but this has not stopped it from marketing a highly success-line of products to national and corporate armies across the globe. It has also not kept Militech from purchasing many products from Petrochem, including solid and liquid rocket propellants, advanced materials for the components of vehicles and weapons systems, and of course, CHOOH2 to run its vehicles.

Petrochem has been at the forefront with the development of a line of lethal and incapacitating chemical weapons which act in seconds and then break down into harmless components within minutes of use, leaving the area safe for mop-up troops to move in with at requiring protective gear. They have also developed a line of "Selective Agents" designed to be ineffective against troops that have received a series of antidote treatments. This allows soldiers to fight without protection in a cloud lethal to their enemies, or to call down defensive chemical strikes on their own positions with- out fear for their lives. There have been one or two unfortunate incidents with defective antidote treatments, but they have not dampened overall enthusiasm for the products.

Petrochem also bought the license to produce biological and viral agents developed by Biotechnica. Biotechnica is largely a development house, and it lacks the facilities for full-scale production of many of the items it creates. Because of the long, profitable relationship between the two corporations, Petrochem usually gets first crack at profitable licenses for Biotechnica weapons.

Advance Materials
Petrochem is responsible for the development and manufacture of a variety of materials designed to replace hydrocarbon-based plastics and other products dependent upon natural resources. The company has a line of completely synthetic polymers and ceramics which have found popular acceptance as building materials, automotive parts, and electronics components. One of Petrochem's subsidiaries is Nano systems Inc., one of the world's leading manufacturers of super conductors and nanotech devices. Another Petrochem company produces Asphate, the ceramic which has replaced oil-based asphalt as a matrix for road surfaces. Petrochem has released groundbreaking alloys and ceramics that can replace steel and aluminum as the structural materials in buildings and allow new styles and dimensions in construction.

Petrochem has developed a staggering variety of materials, from clothing fabrics to concretes. It currently supplies synthetic raw materials to a number of companies which manufacture other products, making it an essential link in the commercial success of corporations around the world. This dependence of other corporations on Petrochem products has served to make the corporation a world leader.

Research and Development
Petrochem maintains a huge research and development budget, and it has several subsidiaries devoted entirely to the creation of new products which are then manufactured by other branches of the corporation. Petrochem labs register for thousands of patents every month. While it's true that only a few of those go on to be commercially viable products, it speaks of the huge funding and resources that the company is willing to invest in the expansion of its product line and information base.

Petrochem labs currently work full-time on the development of advanced structural and electronic materials, drugs and pharmaceuticals, weapons, fuels and new recycling techniques. They recruit the best and the brightest of physical chemists, organic chemists, engineers, physicists, molecular biologists and bio- chemists. With the amount of talent at their disposal, it is not surprising that they produce a large number of the world's ground- breaking advances in the chemical and physical sciences. They also have labs and researchers working constantly on mechanical and geophysical advances for the petroleum drilling department. These are the researchers who created the methods and devices that allow Petrochem to exploit oil fields once thought to be inaccessible or depleted. They are also developing techniques for locating oil resources that have eluded discovery.

Alternative Fuels
Some of Petrochem's mighty research and development resources are devoted to the endless quest for still more new fuel and energy systems. Petrochem is researching fusion, along with such companies as IEC Power Systems and Arasaka Heavy Industry. It is not doing it for the same reasons, however. IEC is researching fusion in order to provide a power source that can be used as an alternative to CHOOH2-burning plants. They feel that this will free up land for critical food production. This wouldn't effect the demand for CHOOH2 as a vehicle fuel, but it would cut down overall demand and reduce the value of Petrochem's CHOOH2 license. It might also force Petrochem to convert some land to dedicated food production and idle some of their refining capability: a costly situation. Petrochem is researching fusion so that, if a breakthrough is made, it will be able to share in the profits and cut its losses.

Goals
Petrochem's directors are doing everything they can to guarantee the future prosperity of their corporation. A large part of this is ensuring that the demand for CHOOH2 remains high. Petrochem maintains a continual campaign extolling the virtues of CHOOH2 over such competitors as fusion power systems and battery-powered cars. So far, the program has been largely successful, and demand for CHOOH2 is still growing. No one has managed to come up with a better fuel, and as long as the supply of CHOOHZ isn't threatened, it seems unlikely that anything else will take its place.

Despite the continued success of CHOOH2, Petrochem is always, on guard. There are competitors who would like to introduce their own alternate grain fuels, or simply damage Petrochem's sales. One way that these companies wage war is by subjecting each other's crops to bioengineered plagues. There have been crises where a large part of the world's Megasuavis crop has been destroyed and the price of CHOOH2 has gone ballistic. As a safeguard, Petrochem developed a program which is now used by CHOOHZ companies around the globe. It grows several varieties of the plant, each of which produces CHOOH2, but each of which has different strengths and weaknesses with regard to viral, fungal and bacterial plagues. It becomes difficult for a saboteur to destroy more than a part of the crop. At the same time, Biotechnica, with Petrochem cooperation, is continually trying to develop tougher versions of the plant for its licensees to grow. But as the plants get tougher, so do the plagues, and the cycle spirals onward.

In order to protect itself against this kind of action, Petrochem has taken to using military force in retaliation for sabotage. By the end of the Second Corporate War, Petrochem had accumulated a large army and an ample supply of war materiel. It does not hesitate to use these resources to safeguard its money crop.

As a further safeguard, Petrochem is trying to expand its monopoly. It has been unable to persuade Biotechnica to make it the sole licensee for T. Megasuavis, but it is continually expanding its market and attempting to drive competitors out of business. Petrochem has employed the plague tactic several times itself, and is shameless when it comes to edging out the competition however possible. Recently, Petrochem's market share has been growing in South America, but it faces serious competition in Europe and Asia from SovOil. SovOil's CHOOH2 has more impurities than Petrochem's, but it is competitively priced and functions identically to Petrochem's in every respect except for emissions. Petrochem currently has a large lobby working in governments across Europe and Asia. The lobby is attempting to toughen air- quality standards so that people will be forced to abandon SovOil fuels. SovOil is a potent force, however, and it has been able to deflect Petrochem's efforts thus far.

SovOil remains Petrochem's greatest competitor in oil drilling as well. SovOil holds the edge, with access to far greater reserves than Petrochem. Petrochem devotes huge amounts of time and money to trying to expand its oil reserves and undercut those of SovOil. The board of directors at Petrochem would like nothing so much as to see SovOil go under for good, but, despite their efforts, that isn't likely to happen any time in the near future.

Petrochem continues to grow and diversify, expanding into more and wider areas of manufacturing and producing valuable chemical and materials patents every year. Most investors have targeted the company for good growth over the next few years if it can avoid another costly confrontation with SovOil. If the company continues to expand, the CHOOH2 demand stays consistent, and the oil drilling projects in Antarctica and on the Ocean floor work out.

Enemies and Allies
Petrochem's most obvious enemy is SovOil. The two giants have a fifteen year history of animosity and competition, and tension is growing again. Many analysts have projected a new corporate war between the two within the next few years. If it should erupt at the same time as the long-projected Militech vs. Arasaka Conflict, the shock waves will rock the corporate world to the core, and could plunge the real world into disaster. Close scrutiny is being paid to the relationship between the corporations.

Apart from SovOil, Petrochem has no truly potent enemies. Many other companies compete in CHOOH2 production, but most of them are small enough so that they represent no real threat. Periodically they disrupt Petrochem's operations, but without a coalition, which is unlikely, they will be unable to cause Petrochem any long-term damage. Petrochem also competes with other agricorps, but few of them are willing to take any serious action since they rely on the corporation for fuel.

Petrochem's strongest ally is Biotechnica. As long as Biotechnica holds the patents to CHOOH2, the two companies will remain cordial. Biotechnica will not bend to Petrochem's will, but it does give its largest licensee special deals. Many analysts thought that, once it had the secret of CHOOH2, Petrochem would squash the small Biotechnica and refuse to pay any license fees. Biotechnica has weapons that other corporations only dream about, however, including viruses which can destroy all known varieties of T. Megasuavis. and prevent any seeds from being viable. What it created, it can destroy with unmatched efficiency. As long as Biotechnica holds these trump cards, Petrochem is unlikely to mess around. The companies continue to have a mutually beneficial business arrangement, although it strains a little at license renewal time.

Petrochem also stays on a cordial footing with the industrial giants: Arasaka, Militech, EBM and IEC. Many of these corporations have special deals which enable them to purchase CHOOH2, at a bulk discount. This makes it cheaper for them to keep their armies running, and makes Petrochem a valuable ally. There are always other sources, however, and corporate alliances are fickle things.

Petrochem's monopoly on the North American CHOOH2 supply is a valuable piece of insurance that has helped the corporation to remain secure in troubled times. It remains to be seen how long the company can stay secure as world tensions rise.

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.

Petrochem Headquarters Towers
Petrochem's world headquarters complex is on the outskirts of Irving, a Texas corporate suburb in the Dallas-Ft. Worth Metroplex, just a few minutes drive from downtown Dallas. The buildings arc relatively recent, having been constructed to replace the old Parker Petrochemicals headquarters in 2006.Many of the Metroplex's once proud corporate sectors have fallen on hard times since the death of the American petroleum industry. The old oil company buildings have been leased piecemeal, sold, or just left to decay. Some areas still thrive, but most of the new buildings belong to agricorps and foreign high-tech corporations.

The Petrochem headquarters complex is really two separate towers, connected underground. The towers are angled slightly towards one another, with the main faces designed to create the illusion of a reflection. A mirror-image pattern of alternating rows of reflective and tinted windows helps to complete the illusion. Even the company logo is mirror imaged on the towers. There is also a large reflecting pool in the plaza in front of the buildings. The overall effect is quite striking. At night, powerful floodlights shine straight up from the roofs of the towers, reaching into the night sky over Irving. The two buildings are called Tower One and Tower Two.

The company owns several acres of land around the towers, and the complex stands alone. Although there are several nearby industrial buildings, the nearest other tower of any size is a kilometer away. Tower One, on the left, is the actual corporate headquarters, with the executive and board offices, the military command centers, and the liaison offices for all of the company branches and subsidiaries. Tower Two contains the headquarters for the subsidiaries Continental Agricorp and Petrochem Oil Technologies, and the regional office for Xoma Pharmaceuticals and a few other large subsidiaries.

The towers are similar in interior decor and layout. The lobbies of the two buildings are almost identical. Each has a wide, recessed entrance, and each is high-ceiling-ed and painted and carpeted in light, airy colors. Photos and paintings depicting Old West and oil-business history line the walls, and there are scale models of Petrochem ships, oil platforms, and CHOOH2 refineries.

Regional Offices
Petrochem has regional offices in cities across the globe. There is little standardization among the offices; each has its own style of construction and decor. Security arrangements and the company logo are the two things that change little from site to site. Major Petrochem offices can be found in New York, Washington D.C., Miami, Chicago, San Francisco, Night City, Tokyo, London, Hamburg, Hong Kong, Paris, Rome, Sydney, and several other cities.

XOMA Pharmaceuticals
The Xoma Pharmaceuticals headquarters is located in Night City, where the subsidiary was founded. The building is a relatively small, black and white, four story structure in an office park in South Night City. The building sits in a fenced and patrolled area, all of which is off limits to anyone not wearing a Xoma or Petrochem ID or carrying a badge. Three hundred people work at the Xoma headquarters, 200 researchers and technicians, and 100 hundred management, staff and security. There are always twenty-two troops on duty in the building; four in the lobby, six patrolling the grounds, ten patrolling the building, and two at the gate. More troops can be called up within a few minutes. The interior decor of the building is extremely stylish and high tech. All access is tightly monitored. Facilities include an infirmary, armory, security center, cafeteria, and labs. There is always an Osprey on call on one of the two roof-top helipads.

Farms
Petrochem has huge firms devoted entirely to the cultivation of T. Megasuavis for CHOOH2. Farms can cover thousands of square kilometers, with buildings concentrated in a few scattered locations. The huge fields are crisscrossed with paved roads, dirt service roads, and irrigation ditches and pipes. Most farms have a remote outpost for every one hundred square kilometers of field. ROs have small security squads (usually no more than five to ten men), monitoring posts, huge silos for harvested grain, a garage for the automated combine harvesters, tractors and grain trucks that run in that area, and facilities for the workers that operate and service the machinery. Each farm also has a command center which coordinates the planting, pest control, harvesting, and transport duties of the remote outposts.

Refineries
Fermenteries might be a better term for most of the plants, but the name is applied to all of the huge fuel processing stations, whether they use wheat or oil. Refineries are huge structures, with tank Farms, refining towers, sumps, pumping stations, yeast farms, fermentation vats, filtering arrays, catalyzing tanks, power plants, furnaces, and docks, all connected by thousands of miles of pipeline. They can cover up to a square mile or more, and be staffed by several thousand personnel. Most of Petrochem's refineries are sea-front, to facilitate the loading of refined CHOOH2 onto the ranker ships and submarines which carry it around the world, and to minimize the overland travel of the precious oil recovered by the offshore drilling rigs and SDPR platforms. These huge oil terminals and docks require even more personnel. The oil terminals are huge piers built several hundred meters off shore, in relatively sheltered, shallow water. The piers are connected to land by elevated roadways and huge pipes. Tankers and submarines can heave to at the terminals and load or unload grain, oil, and CHOOH2.

Resources & Capital
Petrochem ranks behind several other megacorps in size, assets, and overall value, but its high CHOOH2 sales and precious oil reserves make it one of the richest and most important companies in 2020. Petrochem also owns more land and more vehicles than many other corporations, and maintains larger armed forces. It has a number of diverse and widespread subsidiaries, including the powerful and wealthy Xoma Pharmaceuticals and the vast Continental Farms Agricorp.

Corporate Value
Petrochem's total value in assets is 381 billion Eurobucks, putting it in the number 8 slot in C Magazines index of the top ten corporations. Petrochem is aiming for a spot in the top five, and figures that the discovery of a few new oil fields could give them the push they need. Petrochem needs an additional 50 billion in net assets to push into the top five, but competition is stiff, with several other companies, including Militech and SovOil, in the running for the same slot.

Petrochem's 380 billion eb is divided into a number of holdings. 160 billion represents the company's CHOOH2 holdings and sales, 100 billion is various other real estate and durable goods, including the fleets and oil projects, 60 billion is the projected value of Petrochem's oil reserves, 45 billion represents subsidiaries, 10 billion is investments and cash reserves, and 5 billion is miscellaneous holdings.

Although Petrochem has a smaller net worth than many other megacorporations, it is actually in a stronger financial position than several because it has no large banking arm, and only a small share of its assets are in the form of debts and liens held.

Action Taken
Petrochem is a public corporation with 402 million shares of common stock. Petrochem's stock fluctuates in response the CHOOH2 harvest, the state of relations with SovOil, discovery or depletion of oil reserves, the fortunes of its privately held subsidiaries (Xoma, Continental Agricorp, etc.), and other market forces such as the US and EEC prime rates and national and world-wide military and economic tensions. It is believed that a major oil find might cause the stock to increase dramatically, and possibly to split, and many investors are staking fortunes on this. The current stock price is 110 eb per share. Over the past few years, the price has fluctuated between 79 and 121 eb per share. The all time low came in 2010 after defeat at the hands of SovOil, when company stock traded for 52 eb per share, down from a pre-war high of 99. Even these days, ten years later, war speculation is enough to cause the stock to tumble.

Human Resources
Petrochem and its subsidiaries employ just over 400,000 people world-wide. Fifty thousand of these are armed forces personnel, ten thousand serve in various merchant marine positions, forty thousand work at CHOOH2 or oil refining and/or drilling facilities, forty thousand work on CHOOH2 farms around the word, twenty thousand Agri-corp facilities, eighty thousand work as executives, researchers and staff at Petrochem is and work for various subsidiary companies and chains.

Material Resources
The company keeps a storehouse of other military materiel, including artillery, armored and unarmored combat vehicles, missiles, and heavy weapons. It also has large supplies of general items, such as trucks, cars, computers, farm and security equipment, and communications gear.

Black Market Resources
Aside from its potent military forces and secret agents, Petrochem has black resources, such as powerful viral agents that attack all strains of T. Megasuavis and the CHOOH2 fermentation yeast, Saccharomyces prestoni. Courtesy of Xoma's groundbreaking work, and the company's strong ties to Biotechnica, Petrochem also has access to a wide variety of chemical and biological war fire agents and combat drugs.

Subsidiaries
Petrochem's unifying corporate body is the Petrochemical Associates International Corporation. PAIC's corporate divisions include: Petrochem Inc., Petrochem Petroleum Technologies, Petrochem CHOOH2, Petrochem Advanced Fuel (CHOOH2) Technologies, the Petrochem Credit Union, Petrochem Chemical Industries, and the Petrochem Armed Forces. Some subdivisions include: The Submerged Drilling Project, Petrochem Shipping, Petroleum Refining, Petrochem Farms, Advanced Fuel Refining, Special Projects, Advanced Materials, Alternate Fuels, Petrochem Weapons, and Petrochem Lobbying and Marketing.

Petrochem also has a large number of true subsidiary companies, protected by the usual web of cross-ownership and cross-investment. Just a few of Petrochem's subsidiaries are: Xoma Pharmaceuticals, Inc.; CHOOH4U, Inc.; SeaRig, Inc.; Continental Farms Agricorp, International; Good Earth Foods; International Hydro-Technologies (pumping and pipelines); PetroTech Auto Parts; Loomis Advanced Electronic Research; Moo-Moo Burger, Zany-Cola; Triti-Fizz; Hydro-Chem, Inc; Goman Pharmaceuticals; Sleep King Mattresses; Col-R-Boy Paints; Coastal Engineering and Construction Company, Nanosystems Inc; and the Dallas Cowboys football team. There are many more.