Originally Posted by nthach
There's a Standard station in SF - it's there so Chevron can continue holding the "rights" to the Standard Oil name on the West Coast(Chevron was known as Standard Oil of California, the name change happened after the breakup of Standard Oil). I remember BP as a kid, there was one off I-80 in San Pablo.
Mobil was a SoCal thing, and Exxon existed in NorCal before XOM sold their Benicia refinery to Valero. Now, XOM did enter a licensing agreement with Tesoro, just after BP sold the rights and IP of Arco to them. And now Tesoro is part of Marathon Oil. A few 76 stations in Oakland changed over to Mobil.
I actually remember plenty of Mobil gas stations in Northern California until about the mid-90s. They had that stainless steel gas pump design with the round shape. There was an old Mobil station near where I grew up where an independent just kept them as long as they could before getting ones with a digital readout.
As a kid I always had my own explanation for how things work. I thought that all fuel was right there above ground in the pump. When I saw some slim designs where the upper part was about the same width but the base was narrow, I couldn't figure how they managed to store all that fuel.
I remember Standard well and know exactly which gas station you're referring to. The one on Van Ness across the street from the Holiday Inn.
I live in Contra Costa County, so I've been through the long stream of refinery ownership/name changes and the occasional closure. I remember when Pacific Refining in Hercules closed down and created a huge brownfield problem. Or the Unocal refinery that became Tosco, then ConocoPhillips, then Phillips 66. Also the Shell Martinez refinery which became Equilon Martinez before going back to the old name. And the Golden Eagle Refinery seemed to have a history of accidents which ended up spiking the price of gasoline in California.
Strangely enough I don't really see the Tesoro retail name any more. I was looking up some of the newer Exxon and Mobil stations around here, and they're actually listed as Tesoro station in the station name.
Quote
https://www.exxon.com/en/gas-station/oakland-ca-tesoro63049-200320282
TESORO # 63049
3400 SAN PABLO AVE
OAKLAND , CA 94608
A lot of this is all convoluted now. I guess the Valero retail brand is separate from the Valero refining operations. Also BP relicensing the ARCO name, with BP retaining ownership of ampm and licensing that to Tesoro (or whatever they're called now) in some areas.