The second cutting edge of the profit-building program fashioned more creative uses from Sinclair's resources. The objective was greater dollar return on the existing $1.5 billion of assets. An outstanding success of this drive was the development of $61.5 million in new sales revenue from petrochemicals by 1964 -- a figure later exceeded in a program involving highly imaginative low-risk expansion.

Equally ingenious if less sensational was a new philosophy of manufacturing. Sinclair broke away from the traditional adjustment of refinery product mix to sales and seasonal demands for such items as heating fuels. Instead, runs were geared the year round to optimal gasoline output, emphasizing greatest potential profit. Such a policy enabled Sinclair's engineers to increase the percentage of light oil products derived from a barrel of crude oil. This meant an additional 294 million gallons yearly of products sold as higher-valued gasolines and jet fuels.

Another outstanding operation increased by 83.5 percent between 1959 and 1964 the revenues received from the sale of natural gas and LPG's (so-called bottled gases). Gas sales were spurred on and dubbed "Sinclair's very important cash crop." Natural gas production nearly doubled, from 396 million cubic feet a day in 1959 to 709 million in 1964. Sinclair's marketing of LP-Gas was extended to many states. Greater emphasis was placed on the extraction of liquid hydrocarbons in the field for profitable blending with refinery stocks and further upgrading into petrochemicals at Lyondell. Such production reached a record 23,866 net barrels daily in 1964. The natural gasoline production, plus refining economies, reduced significantly the raw materials Sinclair needed to buy, for another saving.

The recovery of more crude oil from older fields, with sizable increases in reserves -- much cheaper than finding new oil fields -- was pushed through better secondary recovery methods researched in Sinclair's laboratories. Also, participation in 87 new field unitization programs from 1962 to 1964 added an estimated 95 million barrels of recoverable crude oil to reserves. At the same time, acreage was pruned substantially. Many costly unproductive leases were eliminated. Large reservoirs of previously shut in and therefore unproductive gas resources in Oklahoma and Canada were sent to market in 1963 and 1964. In addition, pipeline connections to the rapidly-expanding market areas around Denver gave new sales outlets for refined products from the Sinclair, Wyoming, refinery.

Greater attention also was given to a larger return from brainpower. In 1962 a Management Development Center was opened. It encouraged employees to develop their intellectual resources for greater self-satisfaction and for larger contributions to Sinclair.

New Marketing Ideas Widen Sales Outlets
An upheaval in marketing techniques accompanied the drive for greater profits. Sinclair's public image -- its signs, symbols and service outlets -- was redesigned to improve prestige. Several smaller marketing subsidiaries were merged into Sinclair Refining Company, the principal marketing subsidiary. Researchers gave the marketers a better product in nickel-additive fuels, thus attracting new customers. Big sales volume truck-stop and traveler one-stop roadside complexes replaced some retail outlets. A significant increase in revenues was achieved by direct retailing of fertilizers to farmers from Sinclair's share of the Calumet Nitrogen Products Company plant and by the formation in 1965 of a plastics partnership known as Sinclair-Koppers Company.

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