Editing Pearson plc (section)

=== Oil businesses 1901 to 1989 ===
While building the [[Tehuantepec National Railway]] in Mexico for President [[Porfirio Diaz]], Weetman Pearson learned of oil deposits in south Texas and Mexico and in 1901 began buying prospective oil lands in those places.<ref name="Yergin230">Yergin, Daniel, "The Prize, The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power", [[Simon & Schuster]], 1991, pp. 230–232</ref> After striking oil in Mexico in 1908,<ref name="Emergence">{{cite web |last1=Bud Frierman |first1=Lisa |last2=Godley |first2=Andrew C. |last3=Wale |first3=Judith |title=Weetman Pearson in Mexico and the Emergence of a British Oil Major, 1901–1919 |url=http://www.reading.ac.uk/web/files/business/empd042-07.pdf |website=reading.ac.uk |publisher=[[University of Reading]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160602131024/http://www.reading.ac.uk/web/files/business/empd042-07.pdf |archive-date=2 June 2016 |date=2007}}</ref> he founded the [[Mexican Eagle Petroleum Company]] in 1909 to handle all of S. Pearson and Sons' oil interests.<ref name="Emergence"/>

In 1919 the [[Shell plc|Royal Dutch Shell Group]] acquired a large share of, and management of, Mexican Eagle, and Pearson formed Whitehall Petroleum Corporation Ltd. to take over Pearson's oil interests and to prospect globally for oil.<ref name="IDCH"/> It established a major oil company in the U.S., [[Amerada Corporation]], in 1919.<ref name="IDCH"/><ref>{{cite book |title=Hoover's Handbook of American Business 2008, Volume 1 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/isbn_9781573111201/page/422 422–424] |publisher=Hoover's |date=2007 |isbn=978-1-57311-120-1 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9781573111201/page/422}}</ref> Amerada was compulsorily acquired by the British government in 1941 due to World War II; a small interest was reacquired by Pearson in 1945.<ref name="IDCH"/>

In the 1950s Pearson expanded its North American oil and gas interests, and in the 1970s also expanded them globally.<ref name="IDCH"/> By 1989, Pearson divested its oil and gas exploration activities and sold Whitehall Petroleum.<ref name="IDCH"/>