Gulf Oil LP, a subsidiary of Cumberland Farmers Inc. and a previous member of the NEVC, has recently renewed its membership with Growth Energy Market Development.
Gulf Oil Corporation was established in 1901, along with an oil discovery in Spindletop, Texas. The Northeast distribution assets and brand license of Gulf Oil Corporation were acquired by Cumberland Farms in 1986.Today, Gulf Oil LP is a premier gasoline brand throughout the Northeast with approximately 2000 branded locations. Gulf Oil LP is a regional market leader in petroleum and alternative fuel distribution. Cumberland Farms, a privately-held company, began in 1939 as a two-cow dairy farm. Today it is a large convenience store operator with approximately 600 Company-operated and 400 dealer-operated stations spanning 11 states across the northeast and Florida.
There are a number of reasons why they chose to join Growth Energy Market Development says Laura Scott, the Vice President of Strategic Planning and Business Development for both Cumberland Farms and Gulf Oil LP, "For environmental, economic, and security driven, the world will need to develop alternatives to compliment or in some cases replace traditional fossil fuels. Gulf does not know what form of energy will prove to be optimal. Therefore, we believe a number of different technologies should be investigated and tried in the pursuit to find that new source. Biofuels are one option available to the market today. We believe we should do our part to make options available to the public. For this reason we have chosen to install E85 dispensing capability at a small number of our stations on a trial basis."
She went on, "The desire to make choices available to our customers, combined with state and federal support that limits our financial risk, convinced us to install E85 dispensing capability at nine of our stores is one of the foremost reasons why we installed E85 at our fueling facilities."
According to Scott, the most effective way to reach out to consumers is through the major auto manufacturers.
Gulf Oil, LP owns four stations in upstate New York that currently offer E85 as well as either conventional fuel or E10 depending upon market conditions. Five stations on Long Island are slated to have e85 available in 2010.
