Los Angeles County - News from May 22, 1995

Unocal Heads for Oil Patch: Far from its longtime headquarters in Downtown Los Angeles, Unocal Corp. holds its annual shareholders meeting today at 10 a.m. at a Unocal facility in Sugar Land, Tex., just outside Houston. The company has held annual meetings at its Brea research center and in Pasadena but never outside the L.A. basin. Unocal spokesman Barry Lane says a big reason for the switch is to give Unocal’s board an opportunity to view the facility--headquarters for the company’s oil and gas operation and worldwide exploration and development--which now has more employees than any other Unocal office. In a continuing restructuring, Unocal expects to move its headquarters sometime in the next year from the Downtown site it sold years ago, but Lane says it will remain in the L.A. basin. However, environmentalists and human rights critics contend that the company is moving its headquarters to Houston, which they brand a “haven for international environmental outlaws.” Several groups will be making the journey to Sugar Land as well, to protest Unocal projects in Southeast Asia and elsewhere and to argue for a shareholders resolution to review the status of a sour-gas-processing plant recently constructed on Native American land in northern Canada.