Discussion: Convenience stores / gasoline retailers

TW-Upstate NY
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Re: Discussion: Convenience stores / gasoline retailers

Post by TW-Upstate NY »

storewanderer wrote: May 19th, 2021, 12:50 am It is not unusual for folks to store gas at home who have a gas powered lawn mower but I think (hope) most have a proper container who do that. Gas is no joke and these folks who are improperly storing gas are playing with fire literally. I expect they will use it soon enough so the risk will decrease.
It's a fact of life where I live. I've got a lawn tractor and a generator and in the winter a snow blower and they're all thirsty. I keep mine in five gallon steel cans (which are VERY hard to find these days) on a concrete floor in a barn located well away from the house. Can't understand the mentality of this entire episode. I saw a picture of someone at a Wawa pumping gas into a plastic storage tote-Huh?!? And also gasoline does go stale after a while. For their sake, I hope all those people that have stockpiled the stuff know enough to add Stabil or something similar.
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Re: Discussion: Convenience stores / gasoline retailers

Post by Bradford011 »

I'm in northern VA. When a new gas station in the area opens (and in particular if it's a chain moving or expanding into the area) they set their gas prices a LOT lower than their competition for about six weeks or so, as my brother says "getting your business and hopefully your loyalty." We had two new Sheetz stations open (a second one in Leesburg and one in Ashburn) that both did this. A Sunoco in Ashburn that got a new remodel did this as well, but for less than a week.

However, the new Royal Farms that just opened in Opal (some articles/websites list it as Bealton which is actually a few miles down the road) did NOT do this, in fact their prices were matching the higher priced stores and some of the older stations were actually a few pennies cheaper.

My brother anxiously awaited this store to open as he loved the price wars and knew he could get cheap gas here for at least a while. He was really ticked off when they didn't start a price war but luckily gas is a lot cheaper in Orange. So now he just drives through without stopping...
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Re: Discussion: Convenience stores / gasoline retailers

Post by ClownLoach »

Here's a head scratcher - apparently the Lompoc, CA Valero station is being rebranded to Exxon right now. Not Mobil. Haven't seen the Exxon name in SoCal in years.
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Re: Discussion: Convenience stores / gasoline retailers

Post by buckguy »

ClownLoach wrote: December 1st, 2021, 12:55 pm Here's a head scratcher - apparently the Lompoc, CA Valero station is being rebranded to Exxon right now. Not Mobil. Haven't seen the Exxon name in SoCal in years.
They have to find ways to keep a trademark active and so it's often a single station in a state, esp. if its the only one around. They also do this by using it as a brand for some non-core product line. BP, for example, uses the name "Boron" which came with its acquisition of Standard of Ohio on some lines of marine products.
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Re: Discussion: Convenience stores / gasoline retailers

Post by Alpha8472 »

Northern California used to have Mobil until about 1990. Then Mobil stations became BP. Then BP became Beacon. I saw a former Beacon return to Mobil.

Mobil and Exxon returned to Northern California about 5 years ago. Mobil was some of the lowest priced gas in my area. The Mobil stations were remodeled with dazzling blue neon. They looked really great. Then many of the Mobil stations became Speedway and the nice neon was removed. They look terrible now.

There are still a few Mobil and Exxon stations left. They are still some of the lowest priced around except for Costco and Safeway.
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Re: Discussion: Convenience stores / gasoline retailers

Post by storewanderer »

ClownLoach wrote: December 1st, 2021, 12:55 pm Here's a head scratcher - apparently the Lompoc, CA Valero station is being rebranded to Exxon right now. Not Mobil. Haven't seen the Exxon name in SoCal in years.
The Exxon name reappeared in CA about 5 years ago. It was part of whatever deal Tesoro came up with to expand the Exxon and Mobil brands. I have seen a few random Exxons going around- one was somewhere around Palmdale more than 5 years ago. Another was up in some rural place east of 99 around Oakdale. Another was in San Mateo.

Up here in NV, Exxon had a long history of appearing on quite a few different gas stations over the years, but it eventually faded to almost nothing. However up through about 2015 there was a single Exxon branded station in Stateline, NV (Lake Tahoe). For quite a number of years that was the western-most Exxon station and the next Exxon was in Salt Lake City. That Stateline station eventually rebranded to Chevron but a few years later three Mobil stations appeared in Sparks, NV and Mill City, NV with TA/Petro Truck Stops. Mobil is a brand I never saw used in Reno area, until that point.

The Exxon brand has also been used somewhat heavily in Eastern Washington. Tesoro expanded the Mobil brand there but Exxon was there before that and I think continuously.
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Re: Discussion: Convenience stores / gasoline retailers

Post by Romr123 »

One reason for these "necro-names" re-emerging is to allow the marketers to increase density of their stations without messing with territorial limits and exclusivity. Here in Michigan we're getting Amoco stations in between existing BP stations (increasing efficiency for the BP refinery in Lima, Ohio). Same thing between Speedway and Marathon...undoubtedly used for Mobil/Exxon, Shell/Chevron, and Phillips/76.
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Re: Discussion: Convenience stores / gasoline retailers

Post by jamcool »

In Phoenix, gasoline brands that have previously disappeared have returned. Mobil retreated from this market when Circle K bought their OnTheRun stores. 76 left when Phillips 66 sold Circle K to Couche-Tard. Both are back, mostly through independent c-store operators. Shell left the market in the 1980s, only to return when the Equilon partnership with Texaco was split up (after Chevron bought Texaco). Shell got the Texaco-branded company owned sites (the StarMarts), plus selling fuel at a number of Circle K locations. Plus there are a handful of Exxon and Texaco branded stations, all independent operators.
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