ARCO ( ) is a
brand
A brand is a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that distinguishes one seller's good or service from those of other sellers. Brands are used in business, marketing, and advertising for recognition and, importantly, to create an ...
of
gasoline stations currently owned by
Marathon Petroleum
Marathon Petroleum Corporation is an American petroleum refining, marketing, and transportation company headquartered in Findlay, Ohio. The company was a wholly owned subsidiary of Marathon Oil until a corporate spin-off in 2011.
Following it ...
after
BP sold its rights. BP commercializes the brand in Northern California, Oregon and Washington, while Marathon has rights for the rest of the United States and in Mexico.
[
ARCO had been established in 1966 as the "Atlantic Richfield Company", an independent ]oil and gas
A fossil fuel is a hydrocarbon-containing material formed naturally in the Earth's crust from the remains of dead plants and animals that is extracted and burned as a fuel. The main fossil fuels are coal, oil, and natural gas. Fossil fuels ...
company formed after the merger of Atlantic Petroleum and the Richfield Oil Corporation.
History
From 1966 to 2000, the 'Atlantic Richfield Company', doing business as ARCO, was an independent American oil company with operations in the United States, Indonesia, the North Sea
The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian S ...
, the South China Sea
The South China Sea is a marginal sea of the Western Pacific Ocean. It is bounded in the north by the shores of South China (hence the name), in the west by the Indochinese Peninsula, in the east by the islands of Taiwan and northwestern Phil ...
, and Mexico
Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...
. After its acquisition of Anaconda Copper Mining Company in 1977, ARCO had owned hard rock mines in several western states, which has created environmental clean-up liabilities to the company to this day even after the mines were closed in the early 1980s.
In 2000, BP acquired ARCO for $26.8 billion. ARCO's retail and marketing operations were kept separate while the rest of the company was integrated into BP.
In 2012, BP sold its Carson refinery, 800 ARCO stations in California, Arizona and Nevada, and the ownership of the ARCO brand to Tesoro for $2.5 billion while paying Tesoro for an exclusive license for use of the ARCO brand on its stations in northern California, Oregon and Washington which will be continued to be supplied from BP's Cherry Point Refinery
The Cherry Point Refinery is an oil refinery in the northwest United States, near Bellingham, Washington, north of Seattle. Owned by BP, is the largest refinery in Washington state (and was the 30th largest in the U.S. in 2015). The last refine ...
in Washington state.
BP has retained the Atlantic Richfield Company as a subsidiary to handle environmental claims against BP for the clean-up of former Anaconda mine properties.
History
ARCO was formed by the merger
Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are business transactions in which the ownership of companies, other business organizations, or their operating units are transferred to or consolidated with another company or business organization. As an aspect ...
of East Coast
East Coast may refer to:
Entertainment
* East Coast hip hop, a subgenre of hip hop
* East Coast (ASAP Ferg song), "East Coast" (ASAP Ferg song), 2017
* East Coast (Saves the Day song), "East Coast" (Saves the Day song), 2004
* East Coast FM, a ra ...
–based Atlantic Refining and California-based Richfield Oil Corporation in 1966; the company's name is an acronym
An acronym is a word or name formed from the initial components of a longer name or phrase. Acronyms are usually formed from the initial letters of words, as in ''NATO'' (''North Atlantic Treaty Organization''), but sometimes use syllables, as ...
of the two companies' names. A merger in 1969 brought in Sinclair Oil Corporation
Sinclair Oil Corporation was an American petroleum corporation, founded by Harry F. Sinclair on May 1, 1916, the Sinclair Oil and Refining Corporation combined, amalgamated, the assets of 11 small petroleum companies. Originally a New York cor ...
. In the 1970s and 80s, ARCO was one of the largest companies in the world, consistently a top 20 company of the Fortune 500. After its subsequent fracture in the late 1980s and early 90s, ARCO became a subsidiary of UK-based BP plc in 2000 through its BP West Coast Products LLC (BPWCP) affiliate.
*The Atlantic Petroleum Storage Company's heritage dates back to 1866. It became part of the Standard Oil
Standard Oil Company, Inc., was an American oil production, transportation, refining, and marketing company that operated from 1870 to 1911. At its height, Standard Oil was the largest petroleum company in the world, and its success made its co-f ...
trust in 1874, but achieved independence again when Standard Oil was broken up in 1911.
*In 1915, Atlantic opens its first gas station
A filling station, also known as a gas station () or petrol station (), is a facility that sells fuel and engine lubricants for motor vehicles. The most common fuels sold in the 2010s were gasoline (or petrol) and diesel fuel.
Gasoline ...
on Baum Boulevard in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...
.
*In 1917, First Richfield Oil Company of California gas station at Slauson and Central Avenues in Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
, California. Richfield Oil Company of California logo is an Eagle trademark.
*The Atlantic Refining Company was headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...
.
*In 1966, Atlantic merged with the Richfield Oil Company of California. The first CEO was Robert Orville Anderson. The trademark for the new company, a red diamond shape called the ARCO Spark, was designed by Bauhaus
The Staatliches Bauhaus (), commonly known as the Bauhaus (), was a German art school operational from 1919 to 1933 that combined crafts and the fine arts.Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 4th edn., 200 ...
artist, designer, and architect Herbert Bayer.
*Commercial oil exploration started in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, in the 1960s and the Prudhoe Bay Oil Field, North America's largest oil field, was discovered on March 12, 1968, by Atlantic Richfield Company (ARCO) and Exxon with the well Prudhoe Bay State #1. Key employees with ARCO Alaska were Marvin Mangus
Marvin Dale Mangus (1924–2009) was an American geologist and landscape painter. He was giving the honor of driving a purely symbolic wood stake prior to start of drilling the actual oil well by the Atlantic Richfield Corporation, his employer. T ...
, John M. Sweet, and William D. Leake, chief project engineer for the Alaska pipeline. The Richfield Oil Company of California had purchased the drilling rights to the land where the discovery well was located. British Petroleum had drilling rights near the discovery well.
*ARCO acquired Sinclair Oil Corporation
Sinclair Oil Corporation was an American petroleum corporation, founded by Harry F. Sinclair on May 1, 1916, the Sinclair Oil and Refining Corporation combined, amalgamated, the assets of 11 small petroleum companies. Originally a New York cor ...
in 1969, but later divested certain Sinclair assets during the mid-1970s, resulting in Sinclair returning as a private company.
* In 1978, ARCO opened the first of its ampm
''ampm'' (rarely "am/pm") is a convenience store chain with branches located in several U.S. states, including Arizona, California, Nevada, Oregon, Washington and in several countries such as Costa Rica and Brazil. The brand pulled out of the ...
convenience stores in Southern California.
1980s
Due to the increasing cost in processing credit card sales, ARCO eliminated its own private credit card program and also the acceptance of all bank credit cards, such as Visa and MasterCard, in 1982. In this way, the company was able to pass the resulting savings on to its dealers which resulted in the company becoming the only major gasoline retailer to accept only cash at its stations.
In 1985, ARCO's East Coast stations were not doing very well so ARCO sold 400 service stations in eight states and the District of Columbia to the Shell Oil Company for an undisclosed price and also sold 576 service stations in Pennsylvania and New York plus a refinery in Pennsylvania for $420 million to Dutch trader John Deuss who rebranded the stations to their former name Atlantic
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe an ...
. Deuss later sold the stations plus refinery, pipelines and terminals in 1988 to Sunoco
Sunoco LP is an American master limited partnership organized under Delaware state laws and headquartered in Dallas, Texas, that is a wholesale distributor of motor fuels. It distributes fuel to more than 5,500 Sunoco-branded gas stations, ...
for $513 million.
In 1986, ARCO began to accept bank ATM cards (which later became debit cards) at its stations by adding on a transaction fee of initially 10 cents for those sales while maintaining cash only sales at the previous low price.
1990s
In the beginning of the 1990s, a subsidiary, ARCO Power Technologies, later Advanced Power Technologies (APTI), was the primary contractor for the High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program
The High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) was initiated as an ionosphere, ionospheric research program jointly funded by the United States Air Force, U.S. Air Force, the United States Navy, U.S. Navy, the University of Alaska ...
(HAARP Project). ARCO having hired Bernard Eastlund Bernard J. Eastlund (1938 – December 12, 2007) was an American physicist who received his B.S. in physics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and his Ph.D. in physics from Columbia University. In 1970 he received a Special Achievement ...
led to conspiracy theories about weather control and warfare.
In March 1997, ARCO also leased almost all the gas stations of the (now) Santa Fe Springs, California based independent Thrifty Oil group of 250 stations found throughout California after a damaging price war which the independent Thrifty was unable to win.
On July 5, 1990, an explosion at an ARCO petrochemical facility in Channelview, Texas
Channelview is a census-designated place (CDP) in the U.S. state of Texas on the eastside of Houston, Harris County. The population was 45,688 at the 2020 U.S. census.
History
Channelview was given its name since it is located on the north ...
killed 17 people and injured five others.
2000s
On April 18, 2000, ARCO was purchased by BP America and completely merged into BP operations. There were two exceptions due to FTC requirements: ARCO Alaska was sold by BP to Phillips Petroleum
Phillips Petroleum Company was an American oil company incorporated in 1917 that expanded into petroleum refining, marketing and transportation, natural gas gathering and the chemicals sectors. It was Phillips Petroleum that first found oil in the ...
, and ARCO Pipe Line Company was acquired by TEPPCO, a subsidiary of Enterprise Products
Enterprise Products Partners L.P. () is an American midstream natural gas and crude oil pipeline company with headquarters in Houston, Texas.
It acquired GulfTerra in September 2004. The company ranked No. 105 in the 2018 Fortune 500 list of th ...
. ARCO as a subsidiary no longer exists.
Headquarter buildings
From 1972 to 2000, ARCO's global corporate headquarters were in the ARCO Plaza
City National Plaza is a twin tower skyscraper complex on South Flower Street in western Downtown Los Angeles, California, United States. It was originally named ARCO Plaza upon opening in 1972.
History
Richfield Tower
The present complex is ...
in Los Angeles at the corner of 5th and Flower Streets, the site of Richfield's former headquarters. Upon completion in 1972, the ARCO Plaza towers were the tallest buildings in the city for one year before being overtaken by Aon Center, and were the tallest twin towers in the world until the completion of the World Trade Center
World Trade Centers are sites recognized by the World Trade Centers Association.
World Trade Center may refer to:
Buildings
* List of World Trade Centers
* World Trade Center (2001–present), a building complex that includes five skyscrapers, a ...
in New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
. In 1986, joint owners ARCO and Bank of America
The Bank of America Corporation (often abbreviated BofA or BoA) is an American multinational investment bank and financial services holding company headquartered at the Bank of America Corporate Center in Charlotte, North Carolina. The bank w ...
sold the buildings to Shuwa Investments Corp., the American subsidiary of Shuwa Co. of Tokyo, for $650 million while both remained tenants in their respective named towers. ARCO moved out of the building in 1999. The building was renamed City National Plaza in 2005.
ARCO's Oil & Gas division headquarters were in downtown Dallas, Texas
Dallas () is the third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 million people. It is the largest city in and seat of Dallas County w ...
. The headquarters' building was a 46-story office building designed by architect I.M. Pei
Ieoh Ming Pei
– website of Pei Cobb Freed & Partners ( ; ; April 26, 1917 – May 16, 2019) was ...
, the ARCO Tower. ARCO closed the Dallas office and sold the building in the mid-1980s. The building is now called Energy Plaza
Energy Plaza is a skyscraper in the City Center District of downtown Dallas, Texas, United States, north of Thanks-Giving Square at 1601 Bryan Street. Designed by I.M. Pei and Partners, the building is and 49 stories, making it the ninth-talles ...
.
Research Laboratory
From the 1960s until the end of the twentieth century, ARCO operated a highly significant research and development center in Plano, Texas, on land purchased in 1964 by the Atlantic Refinery Company. Its golden age was arguably in the early to mid 1980s, when it was led by Robert L. Hirsch
Robert L. Hirsch is an American physicist who has been involved in energy issues from the late 1960s. Through the 1970s he directed the U.S. fusion energy program at a variety of government positions as responsibility for the project moved from ...
. A standout example of ARCO's research at that time was the pioneering study on 4D seismic surveying by Robert Greaves and Terry Fulp. This consisted of repeated 3D seismic surveys which successfully mapped the effects of enhanced oil recovery processes as a function of time. This work was recognized for its seminal importance over 20 years later by the Society of Exploration Geophysicists. Besides Greaves and Fulp, the laboratory produced a number of other distinguished alumni during this golden age, including scientists John Castagna, Michael Batzle, Geoffrey Dorn, and Marius Vassiliou. In later years the laboratory experienced significant contraction. It finally closed shortly after the 2000 acquisition of ARCO by BP.
ARCO Solar
During the 1970s, the United States government and states such as California, try to encourage companies to invest in the development of low pollution renewable energies sources. Oil companies, such as BP, Shell, and ARCO began to look into photovoltaic
Photovoltaics (PV) is the conversion of light into electricity using semiconducting materials that exhibit the photovoltaic effect, a phenomenon studied in physics, photochemistry, and electrochemistry. The photovoltaic effect is commercially us ...
s. In 1977, ARCO purchased Chatsworth-based Solar Technology International, renamed it ARCO Solar and moved it to Camarillo. In 1982, Arco constructed the world's first photovoltaic central utility power plant, a 1-megawatt facility near Hesperia. Unfortunately for ARCO, the solar panel industry was very costly and not very profitable so it was looking for a buyer by 1989 and finally sold the company to the German company Siemens
Siemens AG ( ) is a German multinational conglomerate corporation and the largest industrial manufacturing company in Europe headquartered in Munich with branch offices abroad.
The principal divisions of the corporation are ''Industry'', '' ...
for $36 million.
ARCO Chemical
In 1987, ARCO Chemical Co. was spun off and taken public, with ARCO selling 19.9% to the public. Lyondell bought ARCO Chemical in 1998 for $5.6 billion including ARCO's entire 82.2% ownership stake.
Key figures included ARCO Chemical CEO Harold Sorgenti
Harold Sorgenti was an American engineer, businessman and investor, the former president and chief executive officer of ARCO Chemical and a key member of Ennovance Capital. He has served as chairman of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts an ...
and ARCO Chemical CFO William Magee.
Anaconda Copper
ARCO merged with Anaconda Copper Mining Company of Montana
Montana () is a state in the Mountain West division of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota and South Dakota to the east, Wyoming to the south, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columbi ...
in 1977. Anaconda's holdings included the Berkeley Pit
The Berkeley Pit is a former open pit copper mine in the western United States, located in Butte, Montana. It is long by wide, with an approximate depth of . It is filled to a depth of about with water that is heavily acidic (2.5 pH level), ab ...
and the Anaconda, Montana
Anaconda, county seat of Deer Lodge County, which has a consolidated city-county government, is located in southwestern Montana, United States. Located at the foot of the Anaconda Range (known locally as the "Pintlers"), the Continental Divid ...
Smelter. ARCO founder Robert Orville Anderson stated "he hoped Anaconda's resources and expertise would help him launch a major shale-oil venture, but that the world oil glut and the declining price of petroleum
The price of oil, or the oil price, generally refers to the spot price of a barrel () of benchmark crude oil—a reference price for buyers and sellers of crude oil such as West Texas Intermediate (WTI), Brent Crude, Dubai Crude, OPEC Ref ...
made shale oil
Shale oil is an unconventional oil produced from oil shale rock fragments by pyrolysis, hydrogenation, or thermal dissolution. These processes convert the organic matter within the rock (kerogen) into synthetic oil and gas. The resulting oil ca ...
moot". The purchase turned out to be a regrettable decision for ARCO. A lack of experience with hard-rock mining and a sudden drop in the price of copper
Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu (from la, cuprum) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkis ...
to below seventy cents a pound, the lowest in years, caused ARCO to suspend all operations in Butte, Montana
Butte ( ) is a consolidated city-county and the county seat of Silver Bow County, Montana, United States. In 1977, the city and county governments consolidated to form the sole entity of Butte-Silver Bow. The city covers , and, according to the ...
. By 1983, only six years after acquiring rights to the "Richest Hill on Earth
Butte ( ) is a consolidated city-county and the county seat of Silver Bow County, Montana, United States. In 1977, the city and county governments consolidated to form the sole entity of Butte-Silver Bow. The city covers , and, according to the ...
", the Berkeley Pit was completely idle. By 1986, some ARCO properties were sold to billionaire industrialist Dennis Washington, whose company, Montana Resources, operates a much smaller open-pit mine east of the defunct Berkeley Pit.
Superfund site
ARCO is the responsible party (by its ownership of Anaconda Copper at the time operations were terminated) for the largest U.S. Superfund
Superfund is a United States federal environmental remediation program established by the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA). The program is administered by the United States Environmental Pro ...
site—a site that takes in the towns of Butte and Anaconda, and of the Clark Fork River
The Clark Fork, or the Clark Fork of the Columbia River, is a river in the U.S. states of Montana and Idaho, approximately long. The largest river by volume in Montana, it drains an extensive region of the Rocky Mountains in western Montana and ...
including Milltown Dam
The Milltown Reservoir Sediments Superfund Site is a major Superfund site in Missoula County, Montana, seven miles east of Missoula. It was added to the National Priorities List in 1983 when arsenic groundwater contamination was found in the Mil ...
. The region's water and soil were polluted by a century of mining and smelting. Chemicals of concern include many heavy metals and arsenic. On 7 February 2008, the United States Environmental Protection Agency
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is an independent executive agency of the United States federal government tasked with environmental protection matters. President Richard Nixon proposed the establishment of EPA on July 9, 1970; it be ...
announced that prolonged litigation with ARCO ended when ARCO agreed to pay $187 million to finance natural resource restoration activities. Anaconda Copper still nominally exists, but only as a massive environmental liability for ARCO.
Atlantic Richfield Co and its parent BP America agreed to settle a class-action lawsuit brought by about 700 current and former residents of Yerington, Nevada, who lived near the Anaconda mine built in 1941. The company paid in Nevada up to $19.5M for settlement. EPA tested in 2009 wells and found that 79% of the wells north of mine had dangerous levels of uranium and/or arsenic.
Legal issues
In September 2010, the staff of KCST-FM
KCST-FM (106.9 FM) is a radio station broadcasting an Adult Contemporary format. Licensed to Florence, Oregon, United States, the station serves the central Oregon Coast. The station is currently owned by Coast Broadcasting Co., Inc. and featur ...
in Florence, Oregon, noticed that the station's Emergency Alert System
The Emergency Alert System (EAS) is a national warning system in the United States designed to allow authorized officials to broadcast emergency alerts and warning messages to the public via cable, satellite, or broadcast television, and both ...
(EAS) equipment would repeatedly unmute as if receiving an incoming EAS message several times a week. During each event, which was relayed from KKNU in Springfield
Springfield may refer to:
* Springfield (toponym), the place name in general
Places and locations Australia
* Springfield, New South Wales (Central Coast)
* Springfield, New South Wales (Snowy Monaro Regional Council)
* Springfield, Queenslan ...
, the same commercial advertisement for ARCO/ BP gasoline could be heard, along with the words "This test has been brought to you by ARCO". Further investigation by the primary station transmitting the commercial revealed that the spot had been produced using an audio clip of an actual EAS header which had been modified to lower the header's volume and presumably prevent it from triggering false positive alert reactions in EAS equipment. The spot was distributed nationally, and after it had once been identified as the source of the false EAS equipment trips, various stations around the country reported having had similar experiences. After a widespread notification by the Society of Broadcast Engineers
The Society of Broadcast Engineers (SBE) is a professional organization for engineers in broadcast radio and television. The SBE also offers certification in various radio frequency and video and audio technology areas for its members.
Backgrou ...
was issued, ARCO's ad agency withdrew the commercial from airplay.
Sponsorships
Sports
Starting in 1965, ARCO sponsored the ARCO Jesse Owens Games, an annual track meet for children aged ten to fifteen that was started by olympics gold medalist Jesse Owens
James Cleveland "Jesse" Owens (September 12, 1913March 31, 1980) was an American track and field athlete who won four gold medals at the 1936 Olympic Games.
Owens specialized in the sprints and the long jump and was recognized in his lifet ...
.
In 1980, ARCO became a sponsor of the 1984 Summer Olympics
The 1984 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXIII Olympiad and also known as Los Angeles 1984) were an international multi-sport event held from July 28 to August 12, 1984, in Los Angeles, California, United States. It marked the secon ...
that were held in Los Angeles and had helped financed the refurbishing of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum
The Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum (also known as the L.A. Coliseum) is a multi-purpose stadium in the Exposition Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. Conceived as a hallmark of civic pride, the Coliseum was commissioned in 1921 as a mem ...
.
In 1985, ARCO became a sponsor of the just-moved Sacramento Kings basketball franchise and had obtained the long-term naming rights for both their temporary and permanent homes, Original ARCO Arena
ARCO Arena (originally called the Sacramento Sports Arena and sometimes referred to as the ''Original ARCO Arena'' or ''ARCO Arena I'' to distinguish it from its successor) was an indoor arena in Sacramento, California. It was the NBA's smallest ...
and the purpose built ARCO Arena. After BP acquired ARCO in 2000, BP decided not to renew the naming rights to the arena when the sponsorship was due to expire in February 2011.
Music
During the 1980s and 1990s, ARCO had sponsored the annual ''ARCO Concerts in the Sky'' summer jazz series at the Bonaventure Hotel in downtown Los Angeles.
ARCO service station brand
Currently, the brand name ARCO is being used by Marathon Petroleum
Marathon Petroleum Corporation is an American petroleum refining, marketing, and transportation company headquartered in Findlay, Ohio. The company was a wholly owned subsidiary of Marathon Oil until a corporate spin-off in 2011.
Following it ...
as a brand of gasoline service stations in the United States and Mexico. In Northern California, Oregon, and Washington states, the ARCO brand is licensed for exclusive use to BP for the sale of gasoline in those areas.
Any independent station can adopt the ARCO brand in any territory that is covered by the Marathon Petroleum distribution network outside the BP territories of the northwest.
It has more than 1,300 gas stations in the western part of the United States, and recently () five gas stations in northwestern Mexico.
History
After the Atlantic Richfield Company acquired Sinclair Oil in 1969, Atlantic Richfield decided to merger their three separate service brands into one and call it ARCO. $60 million was spent in the rebranding effort.
Over the course of 2004 and 2005, ARCO signs were replaced with signs that still had the ARCO spark, but BP's Helios
In ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology, Helios (; grc, , , Sun; Homeric Greek: ) is the deity, god and personification of the Sun (Solar deity). His name is also Latinized as Helius, and he is often given the epithets Hyper ...
(BP's new white, yellow, and green "sunburst" mark named after the Greek Sun god, replacing the old British Petroleum shield mark) is also located on the sign. A new tagline "ARCO—part of BP" also appeared on some signs and advertisements. ARCO was known for sponsoring the ARCO Arena (now Sleep Train Arena) in Sacramento, California
)
, image_map = Sacramento County California Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Sacramento Highlighted.svg
, mapsize = 250x200px
, map_caption = Location within Sacramento C ...
, with a license fee of $750,000/year through 2007.
On August 13, 2012, it was announced that Tesoro would purchase ARCO and its refinery for $2.5 billion. The deal came under fire because of increasing fuel prices. Many activists urged state and federal regulators to block the sale because of concerns that it would reduce competition and could lead to higher fuel prices at ARCO stations (ARCO stations make up more than half of all stations with the lowest fuel prices in California). On June 3, 2013, BP sold ARCO and the Carson Refinery to Tesoro for $2.5 billion. BP sold its Southern California terminals (Vinvale, Colton, San Diego, Hathaway, and Hynes) to Tesoro Logistics LP, including the Carson Storage Facility. BP sold the ampm brand to Tesoro for Southern California, Arizona, and Nevada. BP exclusively licensed the ARCO rights from Tesoro for Northern California, Oregon, and Washington.
ARCO is known for its low-priced gasoline compared to other national brands, mainly because of an early 1980s business decision to emphasize cost cutting (cash/debit-only policy) and alternative sources of income (ampm). ARCO is headquartered in La Palma, California.
Tesoro was renamed Andeavor in 2017, and shortly afterwards introduced the ARCO brand for the first time in Mexico by the opening of ARCO branded stations in Tijuana
Tijuana ( ,["Tijuana"](_blank)
(US) and [< ...]
. The introduction of the ARCO brand and other American brands in Mexico came after Mexico ended the monopoly of state-owned Pemex
Pemex (a portmanteau of Petróleos Mexicanos, which translates to ''Mexican Petroleum'' in English; ) is the Mexican state-owned petroleum company managed and operated by the Mexican government. It was formed in 1938 by nationalization and expr ...
.
In spring of 2018, Andeavor began rebranding some SuperAmerica branded stations in North Dakota, South Dakota, Wisconsin and Minnesota to ARCO.
Andeavor was acquired by Marathon Petroleum
Marathon Petroleum Corporation is an American petroleum refining, marketing, and transportation company headquartered in Findlay, Ohio. The company was a wholly owned subsidiary of Marathon Oil until a corporate spin-off in 2011.
Following it ...
in 2018. Following the acquisition, Marathon hinted at keeping the ARCO brand name while rebranding Andeavor's other brands either as standard Marathon stations (for franchised locations) or Speedway
Speedway may refer to:
Racing Race tracks
*Edmonton International Speedway, also known as Speedway Park, a former motor raceway in Edmonton, Alberta
*Indianapolis Motor Speedway, a motor raceway in Speedway, Indiana
Types of races and race cours ...
locations (for company-owned locations); stations still owned by BP may either remain as ARCO or rebranded as Amoco
Amoco () is a brand of fuel stations operating in the United States, and owned by BP since 1998. The Amoco Corporation was an American chemical and oil company, founded by Standard Oil Company in 1889 around a refinery in Whiting, Indiana, a ...
, as BP does not own the rights to the BP name due to licensing-based reasons in the Western United States. Following the merger, ARCO and Marathon began to be marketed together with Marathon stations replacing various Andeavor brands in the Western markets (including Exxon
ExxonMobil Corporation (commonly shortened to Exxon) is an American multinational oil and gas corporation headquartered in Irving, Texas. It is the largest direct descendant of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil, and was formed on November 30, ...
, Mobil
Mobil is a petroleum brand owned and operated by American oil and gas corporation ExxonMobil. The brand was formerly owned and operated by an oil and gas corporation of the same name, which itself merged with Exxon to form ExxonMobil in 1999.
...
& Shell stations under license with ExxonMobil
ExxonMobil Corporation (commonly shortened to Exxon) is an American multinational oil and gas corporation headquartered in Irving, Texas. It is the largest direct descendant of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil, and was formed on November 30, ...
and Royal Dutch Shell
Shell plc is a British multinational oil and gas company headquartered in London, England. Shell is a public limited company with a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and secondary listings on Euronext Amsterdam and the New Yo ...
, respectively) while ARCO returned to Eastern markets for the first time since the 1980s. Marathon ultimately sold Speedway to 7-Eleven
7-Eleven, Inc., stylized as 7-ELEVE, is a multinational chain of retail convenience stores, headquartered in Dallas, Texas. The chain was founded in 1927 as an ice house storefront in Dallas. It was named Tote'm Stores between 1928 and 1946. A ...
in 2021, including some former Andeavor properties.
See also
* ARCO Arena (1985)
ARCO Arena (originally called the Sacramento Sports Arena and sometimes referred to as the ''Original ARCO Arena'' or ''ARCO Arena I'' to distinguish it from its successor) was an indoor arena in Sacramento, California. It was the NBA's smallest ...
and successor venue ARCO Arena (currently the Sleep Train Arena) in Sacramento
)
, image_map = Sacramento County California Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Sacramento Highlighted.svg
, mapsize = 250x200px
, map_caption = Location within Sacramento ...
, California
* Conoco-Phillips Building
The Conoco-Phillips Building is a 22- story, office building begun in 1981 and completed in 1983 as the ARCO Building, at 700 G Street in downtown Anchorage, Alaska and is the tallest building in both Anchorage and the state of Alaska. It was d ...
in Anchorage
Anchorage () is the largest city in the U.S. state of Alaska by population. With a population of 291,247 in 2020, it contains nearly 40% of the state's population. The Anchorage metropolitan area, which includes Anchorage and the neighboring Ma ...
, Alaska
Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S., ...
, originally the ARCO Tower
* Harold Harby, employee of Richfield Oil and member of the Los Angeles City Council
The Los Angeles City Council is the legislative body of the Los Angeles, City of Los Angeles in California.
The council is composed of 15 members elected from single-member districts for four-year terms. The President of the Los Angeles City Counc ...
for all but one year from 1939 to 1957
References
External links
*
Official website as an independent company
(archived)
{{Authority control
Oil companies of the United States
Automotive fuel retailers
Former BP subsidiaries
Gas stations in the United States
Petroleum in California
Companies based in Orange County, California
La Palma, California
American companies established in 1966
Retail companies established in 1966
Energy companies established in 1966
Non-renewable resource companies established in 1966
1966 establishments in California
Economy of the Western United States
Standard Oil
Marathon Petroleum