Valvoline owns no gas stations?

Status
Not open for further replies.
Joined
Jan 26, 2015
Messages
1,460
Location
ME
Ashland/Valvoline the only major oil company that doesn't own oil refineries?
Exxon Mobil
Castrol BP
Pennzoil Shell
Valvoline?
 
Ashland owned marathon, and speedway/super america for a while. But both have been spun off, or sold off.
( I have a second cousin who was a low ranking exec at Ashland before retirement)
 
Last edited:
Is this why you never see Valvoline oil quarts for sale at gas stations,convenience stores,etc?
 
Originally Posted By: aquariuscsm
Is this why you never see Valvoline oil quarts for sale at gas stations,convenience stores,etc?



We have plenty in gas stations here in southern Indiana. We are fairly close to Kentucky where Ashland is located, however.
 
We can create our own motor oil company: Design a label for the bottle, buy Lubrizol pre-packaged additive elixirs that are known to pass specs, mix with the recommended base-stocks we buy from Chevron, XOM, or SOPUS, and advertise.
 
Originally Posted By: donnyj08
Originally Posted By: aquariuscsm
Is this why you never see Valvoline oil quarts for sale at gas stations,convenience stores,etc?



We have plenty in gas stations here in southern Indiana. We are fairly close to Kentucky where Ashland is located, however.


Oh ok,yeah maybe locale has something to do with it. Only oils I ever see here are all Sopus products (including synthetics),GTX (never any Castrol synthetics),and all Exxon Mobil products (conventional and M1).
 
Originally Posted By: zach1900
Ashland/Valvoline the only major oil company that doesn't own oil refineries?
Exxon Mobil
Castrol BP
Pennzoil Shell
Valvoline?


I don't know how "major" they are compared the others being mentioned. Revenue is ~8.2 billion with an operating income of 302 million. Compared to the likes of XOM with a revenue of ~395 billion and an operating income of 34 billion, they are small potatoes. XOM also employs ~75,000 employees, which is similar to what SOPUS employs (and who also has similar revenues) along with BP. In comparison, Ashland employs around 15,000.

Ashland is more comparable to a company like Germany's Fuchs, who has comparable revenue and operating income, though employing far fewer people.
 
Ashland was historically a refiner with a specialty chemicals business.

In the mid-1990's, they decided their future was no longer in petroleum refining, and they looked for a way out of the business. They entered into a joint venture with Marathon in the mid-90's, and Ashland sold it stake in the joint venture to Marathon in the mid-2000's. Marathon never owned Ashland or vice versa.

Ashland owned the Superamerica gas chain. Marathon owned Speedway gas chain. The two came under common ownership under the Marathon Ashland joint venture. Superamerica became a Marathon owned company until it was sold off to Northern Tier Energy after Marathon bought out the Ashland part of the Joint Venture.

Marathon gas stations are all independently owned franchises.

At this point, I'd not call Ashland an oil company any more - more a specialty chemical company. Valvoline is only a portion of their business.

Valvoline is often available for purchase at many convenience stores here, such as the Holiday chain, and I recall it was availible at the last Superamerica I was in as well.
 
Originally Posted By: OVERKILL
Originally Posted By: zach1900
Ashland/Valvoline the only major oil company that doesn't own oil refineries?
Exxon Mobil
Castrol BP
Pennzoil Shell
Valvoline?


I don't know how "major" they are compared the others being mentioned. Revenue is ~8.2 billion with an operating income of 302 million. Compared to the likes of XOM with a revenue of ~395 billion and an operating income of 34 billion, they are small potatoes. XOM also employs ~75,000 employees, which is similar to what SOPUS employs (and who also has similar revenues) along with BP. In comparison, Ashland employs around 15,000.

Ashland is more comparable to a company like Germany's Fuchs, who has comparable revenue and operating income, though employing far fewer people.


Comparing total revenues is a little bit unfair because Ashland doesn't play in the energy markets. When you take the major US automotive lubricant brands they are second only to Shell with ~13% of the market.

That's pretty major to me.
 
Originally Posted By: Solarent
Originally Posted By: OVERKILL
Originally Posted By: zach1900
Ashland/Valvoline the only major oil company that doesn't own oil refineries?
Exxon Mobil
Castrol BP
Pennzoil Shell
Valvoline?


I don't know how "major" they are compared the others being mentioned. Revenue is ~8.2 billion with an operating income of 302 million. Compared to the likes of XOM with a revenue of ~395 billion and an operating income of 34 billion, they are small potatoes. XOM also employs ~75,000 employees, which is similar to what SOPUS employs (and who also has similar revenues) along with BP. In comparison, Ashland employs around 15,000.

Ashland is more comparable to a company like Germany's Fuchs, who has comparable revenue and operating income, though employing far fewer people.


Comparing total revenues is a little bit unfair because Ashland doesn't play in the energy markets. When you take the major US automotive lubricant brands they are second only to Shell with ~13% of the market.

That's pretty major to me.


Fair enough. They are what, probably the largest blender? The title said "Oil Company", which IMHO, they really aren't anymore, which, as you noted, because they don't play in the energy markets, is reflected in their revenue.

The "oil companies" list certainly includes some smaller players like Petro-Canada. Is there a differentiation between blender and non in the oil business or is this just a situation where I'm trying to make a logical division between the "types" of companies that make finished lubricants and there really isn't one?
 
Pentosin isn't in the fuel business, but they must be pretty big, since VW and BMW often use their power steering fluid and DCTF.
 
Marathon, which was part of Ashland, used to own a refinery and the Superamerica chain of gas stations here in MN, but they sold them several years ago.
 
Originally Posted By: Merkava_4
Valvoline is not a major oil company. They may be a major motor oil company, but not a major oil company.


I think this makes a good distinction - subtle but good.

Quote:
Is there a differentiation between blender and non in the oil business or is this just a situation where I'm trying to make a logical division between the "types" of companies that make finished lubricants and there really isn't one?


There is definitely a distinction. Not all major blenders are "backwards integrated" (ie Valvoline, Castrol) meaning they don't produce their own base oils. Some of the major Energy companies (XOM, Shell, PetroCanada) also produce lubricants.
There are also other companies that have refineries that only produce fuels. Some of these may blend their own lubricants, but many of them do not. So just because you are a refiner doesn't mean your an "oil company" and vice versa. And that doesn't even count the ILMA group.

In fact there are many "oil companies" that participate in the industry that are neither refiners or blenders - companies that specialize in exploration, oilfield development, pipelines, trading in oil futures etc. The industry is actually quite complex.

If you read the annual reports of companies like XOM it's pretty clear that they view themselves as Energy companies not Oil companies
 
Originally Posted By: aquariuscsm
Originally Posted By: donnyj08
Originally Posted By: aquariuscsm
Is this why you never see Valvoline oil quarts for sale at gas stations,convenience stores,etc?



We have plenty in gas stations here in southern Indiana. We are fairly close to Kentucky where Ashland is located, however.


Oh ok,yeah maybe locale has something to do with it. Only oils I ever see here are all Sopus products (including synthetics),GTX (never any Castrol synthetics),and all Exxon Mobil products (conventional and M1).


Certainly, I never see any Mobil oils in gas stations around here. Mostly only Valvoline and pennzoil conventionals along with random cheap non API brands.
 
Marathon was never "part" of Ashland. Marathon and Ashland entered into a joint venture in the 1990's to run the refining business, but that doesn't mean Marathon was part of Ashland (and in actuality, Marathon owned over 60% of the joint venture, with Ashland under 40%). Ashland sold their portion out to Marathon to exit the refining business.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top Bottom