Superior Oil Company (1921–1984) was an independent American oil company that is now part of ExxonMobil. Founded in 1921 in Coalinga, California, by William Myron Keck, Superior Oil began as a drilling contracting firm and grew into the exploration and production of oil and natural gas. In 1930 the company was the first to successfully use directional drilling in California. Moving to Houston, Texas, by 1931 the company had wells in Texas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Louisiana and Venezuela. In 1938, the company constructed the first offshore oil platform off the coast of Louisiana in the Gulf of Mexico. In the 1970s, Superior Oil was involved in the oil shale industry developing the Superior multimineral process. In September 1984 the company, then based in Houston, became a wholly owned subsidiary of Mobil. - Source: Wikipedia