Pester Marketing Acquired by Western Alta Holdings
Dassel' s Petroleum Acquired by Energy Distribution Partners
HollyFrontier to Acquire Petro-Canada Lubes
Island Energy Closes Hawaiian Acquisition

PESTER MARKETING ACQUIRED BY WESTERN ALTA HOLDINGS

DENVER, CO. — World Fuel Services Corp., has sold its ownership of Pester Marketing and Alta Convenience Stores to Western Alta Holdings LP Co., of San Antonio, TX. The purchase price was not disclosed.

Western Alta Holdings LC is a private equity group.

Under the terms of the deal, finalized on October 1, all the retail and operations assets of Pester Marketing, including its Alta Convenience Store brand, that had been acquired by World Fuel Services in October 2015 will now transfer to Western Alta Holdings. Phil Zaccaria will serve as CEO of the company and Rich Spresser will continue to serve as president.

Announcing the acquisition, company officials said that they are "are looking for expansion opportunities in the c-store arena," adding that their "intent is to aggressively grow the company with strategic acquisitions that will tuck-in with the current retail platform."

Pester Marketing, headquartered in Denver, operates 57 convenience stores in Colorado, New Mexico, Kansas, and Nebraska under the Alta and Conoco brands. It also operates two terminals and distributes motor fuels, biofuels, and lubricants in the West and Midwest as well as operates a trucking fleet under the name Alta Transportation.

DASSEL'S PETROLEUM ACQUIRED BY ENERGY DISTRIBUTION PARTNERS

HOLLISTER, CA. — Dassel's Petroleum, Inc., based here, has been acquired by Energy Distribution Partners, an energy investment company based in Chicago, IL. The price for the transaction was not disclosed.

Included in the acquisition are all of Dassel's assets including its fuel, lubricant and propane distributorship, four Pacific Pride cardlock facilities, and the Salinas Rail Terminal.

Announcing the deal, Energy Distribution Partners CEO Tom Knauff stated, "We are very pleased to welcome Dassel's Petroleum to the EDP family of companies. We have already been active in southern California, and adding Dassel's expands our presence with five locations in central California. Dassel's will maintain its name and local decision-making for customers, a strategy EDP follows with each acquisition.

"As a multi-generational family business, Dassel's has close ties with local communities and has provided industry leadership for many years in groups such as the Western Propane Gas Association and California Independent Oil Marketers Association," continued Knauff. "We will continue this level of engagement for the benefit of customers in Coastal California."

Dassel's management and staff are expected to continue with the company, which will keep the Dassel's name, under the new management.

The purchase of Dassel's Petroleum is the Energy Distribution Partners' sixth acquisition in 2016. The company now operates fuel distributorships in California, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York.

HOLLYFRONTIER TO ACQUIRE PETRO-CANADA LUBES

DALLAS, TX. — HollyFrontier Corporation announced it will acquire Suncor Energy's Petro-Canada Lubricants business in a deal valued at approximately $845 million.

Included in the deal will be all of Petro-Canada Lubricant's assets, including its plant in Mississauga, Ontario, the largest producer of base oils in Canada. The facility has a capacity of 15,600 barrels per day of lubricant production and is the only North American producer of high margin Group III base oils.

Also included will be Petro-Canada Lubricants business including its global sales and distribution network and a "perpetual exclusive license to use the Petro-Canada trademark in association with Lubricants."

With the addition of the Petro-Canada Lubricants business, HollyFrontier will become the fourth largest lubricants producer in North America with a capacity of 28,000 barrels per day, or approximately 10% of North American production.

"This transformative acquisition will diversify HollyFrontier with the addition of a differentiated high margin business with more stable cash flows," said George Damiris, president and CEO of HollyFrontier, announcing the deal.

"Petro-Canada Lubricants is a great business which, combined with our existing Tulsa Lubricants business, creates scale and will create a strong platform for growth."

The deal is expected to close in the first quarter of 2017 pending regulatory approval.

ISLAND ENERGY CLOSES HAWAIIAN ACQUISITION

KAPOLEI, HI. — Island Energy Service has completed its acquisition of Chevron's refining, distribution and retail assets in the Hawaiian Islands, a deal originally announced in April.

Island Energy Services is a newly created division of the investment company One Rock Capital Partners, based in New York.

Included in the sale are Chevron's 58 convenience stores and gasoline stations on the Hawaiian islands, the 58,000-barrel-per-day refinery in Kapolei, terminals on the islands of Oahu, Maui, Kauai and Hawaii, associated pipeline systems and "other downstream assets." The Chevron-branded service stations and convenience stores will be rebranded to Texaco over the course of the next year.

Island Energy has opened a new headquarters office in Kapolei and reports that 99% of Chevron's approximately 300 employees in Hawaii will remain with the company under the new ownership. Island Energy says it is looking to hire new employees as well as expand its operations in the state.

"Chevron being bought out has a lot of potential for the consumers in Hawaii because we don't have a major player in the market and we have a lot of smaller players," Frank Young, a former Chevron dealer and former chair of the Petroleum Advisory Council told local reporters.. "It heightens competition between the players, whereas when you had a major player, then you had a dominant player that could actually control the market."

He added, "Even like now, with less players, or more smaller players, you're seeing a lot of fluctuation in prices, and that's good. In the past, Hawaii had a reputation of prices going up, but never going back down. Nowadays, you see prices going up seven, eight cents overnight, but then you see them go down seven or eight cents overnight again, which is a good thing. That's how a market is supposed to react."

Originally published in the December 2016 issue of O&A Marketing News.
Copyright 2016 by KAL Publications Inc.