Alliance Petroleum Annual Meeting
CIOMPAC Destruction Derby
Fuel Relief Fund Golf Tournament
Washington Oil Marketers Association Convention & Trade Show
Want to see the photos that didn't make the issue? Check out the Cutting Room Floor.
United Oil Sold
to Investment Group
HollyFrontier
Gets Approval for Refinery Expansion
Targray Offers
Biodiesel in Bakersfield
Phillips 66
Proposes New California Rail Terminal
Convenience
Stores Hit In-Store Sales Record in
2013
GARDENA, CA. — United Oil, one of the largest gasoline station and convenience store operators in Southern California, has been sold to an investment group. The price for the sale was not disclosed.
The new owners, the asset management firm Fortress Investment Group, based in New York, announced the purchase in July.
According to the terms of the deal, Fortress Investment Group will select new senior managers for the company but the employees of United Oil will be offered positions under the new leadership.
United Oil operates approximately 130 gasoline stations in the greater Los Angeles and San Diego territory. It had been ranked by the Los Angeles Business Journal as the fifth largest private company in Los Angeles County with revenues of over $3 billion.
Founded in 1955, United Oil distributes fuel under the Shell, 76, and Valero brands and retails fuel under the United Oil, 76, Shell, Chevron, and Arco brands. The company has also received recognition for their innovative convenience stores, operating under the proprietary "We Got It" brand, and landscaping which generally includes topiary art.
A separate division of United Oil, which operates another chain of gasoline stations in conjunction with World Oil Company of South Gate, CA., under the business name of Apro, was not affected by the deal.
WOODS CROSS, UT. — HollyFrontier has received official approval from the state of Utah to expand its refinery here.
HollyFrontier had submitted plans to increase capacity at the refinery from 31,000 bpd to 45,000 bpd by early 2015. A secondary expansion, called "potential" by HollyFrontier, would increase capacity to 60,000 bpd and be completed in 2016.
Both phases have been approved by the Utah Department of Environmental Quality.
BAKERSFIELD, CA. — Canadian company Targray has begun supplying biodiesel at the terminal here.
The company is offering B99 and B100 from the Bakersfield truck rack as of February.
"Targray has been a major supplier of biodiesel by railcar to the California market," said Andrew Richardson, president of Targray. "We are pleased to take it a step further by providing our customers with this strategic California inventory location able to serve both the north and the south."
Targray officials said they will be looking to expand their marketing in California with the new inventory location.
HOUSTON, TX. — Phillips 66 has announced that it plans to build a new rail terminal in Nipomo, CA., to increase crude oil supply for its Santa Maria Refinery. Phillips 66 is also looking to increase the output at the central California refinery by 10%.
The company is looking to "enable rail delivery of crude oil from other North American sources because the refinery's traditional supply of crude oil from California fields is declining," according to Phillips 66 spokesman Dean Acosta.
It is expected the majority of the crude would come from the Bakken Field in North Dakota.
The proposed rail terminal, which would add five sets of parallel tracks, would be connected to the Union Pacific coastal line, allowing access from trains originating in northern or southern California. Given the source of the crude, it is expected most trains would run southbound from the Bay Area.
The refinery expansion plans currently are being reviewed by the California Coastal Commission; the rail terminal plans and environmental impact are being examined by California regulatory agencies.
CHICAGO, IL. — U.S. convenience stores reached record in-store sales in 2013, according to the National Association of Convenience Stores, with sales increasing 2.4% to $204 billion.
Leading the growth in sales was the increase in food sold at convenience stores with a rise of 2.4% in sales at c-stores. It's worth noting that foodservice also was the category that drove profits, accounting for 29.1% of gross profit dollars.
Combined with motor fuels sales of $491.5 billion, overall convenience store sales were $695.5 billion.
The link between fuels and convenience retailing continues to grow. Motor fuels sales hit new highs, with sales climbing 0.9% to 132,029 gallons per store per month.
Overall, 83.7% of convenience stores (126,658 total) sell motor fuels, a 2.7% increase (3,369 stores) over 2013, according to the 2014 NACS/Nielsen Convenience Industry Store Count.
Motor fuels continued to drive revenue dollars, but in-store sales drove profit dollars. Overall, 70.7% of total sales were motor fuels, but motor fuels only accounted for 35.6% of profit dollars. Motor fuels gross margins were 18.5 cents per gallon before expenses, or 5.3%.
While sales continue to rise at c-stores, costs continue to rise, leading to a decrease in industry pretax profits of $100 million.
"The biggest increase in costs was wages and payroll taxes," according to NACS. "The industry saw a dramatic 19.5% increase in employees, a function of the industry's continuing embrace of foodservice, which requires more labor to manage."
"Our industry numbers demonstrate that convenience and fuel retailing continues to grow, despite economic and retail environment challenges," said NACS Chairman Brad Call, vice president of adventure culture at Maverik Inc., Salt Lake City, UT. "These numbers show that we continue to meet the needs of our diverse consumers throughout the United States."
Originally published in the August
2014 issue of O&A Marketing
News.
Copyright 2014 by KAL Publications Inc.
Serving the 13 Western States, the World's Largest Gasoline, Oil, Fuel, TBA and Automotive Service Market
