1949, when he was 76 years old. In 1942, the company bought more than 250,000 acres in the Hugoton-Panhandle gas fields and a 25 percent interest in the Panhandle Eastern Pipeline Co. In 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court decided the landmark case of Phillips Petroleum vs. State of Wisconsin which held that under the Natural Gas Act, the federal government should regulate the prices which natural gas producers charge when selling gas at the wellhead. Phillips then divested itself of the Panhandle Eastern Pipeline Interest, but remained a major supplier of natural gas. World War II greatly stimulated the demand for petroleum products, especially high-octane aviation fuel and jet fuel. Phillips turned to technology to increase the octane rating of fuels for use in advanced engines. The company invented an HF alkylation process in 1940. The American petrochemical industry took off, first making such as styrene, ethylene, propylene and butadiene. After the war, it formed a subsidiary, Phillips Chemical Co., which entered the fertilizer business by producing anhydrous ammonia from natural gas. The company then built a complex on the Houston Ship Channel devoted to making petrochemicals and polymers. During the 1960s, Phillips expanded its international operations, particularly with exploration in Canada, Venezuela, and Colombia. It discovered the Ekofisk gas field in the North Sea in 1969. In 1966, Phillips Petroleum bought Tidewater Oil Co.'s West Coast operations and rebranded its "Flying A" outlets to Phillips 66. In 1983, Phillips Petroleum bought "General American Oil Company", a Delaware company that was headquartered in Dallas. The company was originally built by Algur H. Meadows in 1936 through a merger with oilman J. W. Gilliland and General American Finance System, a company Meadows formed with Ralph Trippett and Henry W. Peters in the early 1930s. General American Oil Company was "one of the largest independent oil companies in the nation, with worldwide operations and interests." General American was founded in 1928 as a loan company, the General Finance Company, by Meadows, Trippett, and Henry W. Peters, and renamed the General American Oil Company in 1930. The company acquired over 170 oil wells, several refineries and the assets of the General American Finance System and its subsidiaries. By 1959 the company had 2,990 oil wells in fifteen states and Canada and was drilling for oil in Spain. Richard Rainwater became a partner in the company in 1969, as did Howard Hughes. In 1971,