Oil Company
The Pacific Oil Company
“Look, you asked for my advice, and I gave it to you,” Frank Kelsey said. “If I were you,
I wouldn’t make any more concessions! I really don’t think you ought to agree to their last demand! But you’re the one who has to live with the contract, not me!”
Static on the transatlantic telephone connection obscured Jean Fontaine’s reply.
Kelsey asked him to repeat what he had said.
“OK, OK, calm down, Jean. I can see your point of view. I appreciate the pressures you’re under. But I sure don’t like the looks of it from this end. Keep in touch—I’ll talk to you early next week. In the meantime, I will see what others at the office think about this turn of events.”
Frank Kelsey hung up the phone. He sat pensively, staring out at the rain pounding on the window. “Poor Fontaine,” he muttered to himself. “He’s so anxious to please the customer, he’d feel compelled to give them the whole pie without getting his fair share of the dessert!”
Kelsey cleaned and lit his pipe as he mentally reviewed the history of the negotiations.
“My word,” he thought to himself, “we are getting completely taken in with this
Reliant deal! And I can’t make Fontaine see it!”
Background
Pacific Oil Company was founded in 1902 as the Sweetwater Oil Company of Oklahoma
City, Oklahoma. The founder of Sweetwater Oil, E.M. Hutchinson, pioneered a major oil strike in north central Oklahoma that touched off the Oklahoma “black gold” rush
Source: Case prepared by Roy J. Lewicki.
Although this case is over 20 years old, the editors of this volume believe that it presents valuable lessons about the negotiation process.
Lewicki−Barry−Saunders:
Negotiation: Readings,
Exercises, and Cases, Fifth
Edition
Cases 2. Pacific Oil Company (A) © The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2007 of the early 1900s. Through growth and acquisition in the 1920s and 1930s, Hutchinson expanded the company rapidly and renamed it Pacific Oil in 1932. After a period of consolidation in the
“Look, you asked for my advice, and I gave it to you,” Frank Kelsey said. “If I were you,
I wouldn’t make any more concessions! I really don’t think you ought to agree to their last demand! But you’re the one who has to live with the contract, not me!”
Static on the transatlantic telephone connection obscured Jean Fontaine’s reply.
Kelsey asked him to repeat what he had said.
“OK, OK, calm down, Jean. I can see your point of view. I appreciate the pressures you’re under. But I sure don’t like the looks of it from this end. Keep in touch—I’ll talk to you early next week. In the meantime, I will see what others at the office think about this turn of events.”
Frank Kelsey hung up the phone. He sat pensively, staring out at the rain pounding on the window. “Poor Fontaine,” he muttered to himself. “He’s so anxious to please the customer, he’d feel compelled to give them the whole pie without getting his fair share of the dessert!”
Kelsey cleaned and lit his pipe as he mentally reviewed the history of the negotiations.
“My word,” he thought to himself, “we are getting completely taken in with this
Reliant deal! And I can’t make Fontaine see it!”
Background
Pacific Oil Company was founded in 1902 as the Sweetwater Oil Company of Oklahoma
City, Oklahoma. The founder of Sweetwater Oil, E.M. Hutchinson, pioneered a major oil strike in north central Oklahoma that touched off the Oklahoma “black gold” rush
Source: Case prepared by Roy J. Lewicki.
Although this case is over 20 years old, the editors of this volume believe that it presents valuable lessons about the negotiation process.
Lewicki−Barry−Saunders:
Negotiation: Readings,
Exercises, and Cases, Fifth
Edition
Cases 2. Pacific Oil Company (A) © The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2007 of the early 1900s. Through growth and acquisition in the 1920s and 1930s, Hutchinson expanded the company rapidly and renamed it Pacific Oil in 1932. After a period of consolidation in the