Exxon/Mobil has left the gasoline business – at least in my part of the world. After getting so much heat for high gasoline prices in summer 2008 (which we now pretty much know was a trader at Goldman Sachs parking all the world’s oil tankers offshore to dry up supply) in what is called “Contango., Exxon / Mobil announced a while back that there is no money to be made in retail gasoline sales and they’re out of the business. It looks like they were telling the truth. Now instead of Mobil’s well lit, clean, safe stations, I’ve got abduls’ quickie mart selling acme brand gasoline or Hugo Chavez’s Citgo.
Thanks Congress and the Media and the kneejerk people who want to put oil companies out of business!
BP was allowed to buy Amoco only under the condition that stations were culled and the proliferation of Hugo-gas on every street corner has gone unchecked. I managed an Amoco for 5 years and can’t remember a day going by that a customer didn’t give a testimonial to Amoco fuels. For a while, the Amoco name was preserved on the side of BP pumps. I don’t even see that anymore (at the stations that are left that is), so who knows, it may now be Hugo-gas as well.
The Oil Companies have been dumping their stores for a few years now.
No profit, plus a great way to get rid of a bunch of Employees & distro mgr., I saw the quarterly reports at my store, they were in the tank. The Sunoco was sold off (to you guessed it). But they really cleaned up the place and have hired a few of the old employees back (the employees love the new owners). They are under contract to buy fuel from Sunoco. Also not sure but Sunoco might still own the land.
The Exxon up the street has been owned by locals (American family they own eleven stores) for decades. They have their own holding tanks for home heating oil. And they buy their fuel wholesale from Exxon/Mobil & Vellero (figure that out).
Now, the old Gulf & the old Texico ,were brought out by dirtbags. Changed the names to something wacky. The places look like s***holes, they blast that dopey music, treat the customers like s***, They have to pay the bread, milk, chip & soda venders in cash cause their checks bounce at the Bank. You can tell no one goes into them cause there ain’t s*** on the shelves.
My point is don’t paint this with a broad brush and….Hate to say it, but if the fuels not coming from Hugo, it’s coming from our friends (LOL) in the middle east. Thank you both sides of the government.
Robrrt is right, my car always did seem to run better with Amoco, I would go out of my way to fuel up at an Independent Amoco station even though it always was a few cents higher. But when BP brought Amoco out, the owner just stopped selling fuel and concentrated on his repair buisness. How many just Fuel/Repair stations are there left? Very few.
Come November America will hit the big red default button and the Republicans will get back in. But if they haven’t learned by 2012 it will be tea party time.