Source: NACS Online
IRVING, Texas – Major petroleum refiners have been under the gun recently over the sale of company-owned gasoline stations, The Wall Street Journal reports. Some retailers have filed complaints with companies like BP, ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch Shell because Big Oil has been shedding retail outlets.
The refiners say the properties are being sold, usually to fuel distributors, because the stations are a low-profit business. An ExxonMobil spokesman pointed out that any ownership changes should be “transparent” to its customers, who can still fill up with “gas at Exxon and Mobil-branded stations across the U.S.”
However, that’s not comforting for many small-business retailers who are concerned about staying in business, noted the Journal. With a refiner-owned or leased station, dealers received allowances and fuel price rebates. But a distributor-owner might charge a station more for fuel, putting the retailer in a bind because of its contract to sell only a certain brand of fuel.
Already, BP has sold more than 550 stations in New York, New Jersey, California and Arizona. Recently, 20 New Jersey BP dealers filed a lawsuit to stop the oil company from severing its business arrangement.
Single retailers say it can be difficult to purchase an individual station because refiners find “there are less headaches” in working with a company interested in purchasing a group of stations, Ralph Bombardiere, executive director of the New York State Association of Service Stations and Repair Shops, told the newspaper.
This past summer, New Jersey passed legislation that would let retailers have “first right of refusal” when their stations were for sale by a Big Oil company.
