THE $48.2 BILLION merger of BP with Amoco flows from weak oil profits caused by overproduction by Third World countries. It will create the third biggest oil company in the world, after Exxon, which was once Standard Oil of New Jersey, and Royal Dutch/Shell.

BP Amoco will also unite the legacies of giants.

One was John D. Rockefeller, who founded Standard Oil of Ohio in 1870, a monopoly until broken in 1911. Another was William Knox D'Arcy, an Englishman whose investments a century ago became the Anglo-Persian Oil Co., later British Petroleum, now BP.

A third was Louis Blaustein, who left Standard Oil to found the American Oil Co. in 1910. It grew from one horse and wagon, developing the Amoco brand and many innovations, a major force in Baltimore for decades.

In 1954, Amoco fell to Standard Oil of Indiana, which took the Amoco name and shareholders. London-based BP, having acquired Standard Oil of Ohio, adds Amoco.

It's a small world.

Pub Date: 8/13/98