Gulf Oil - Aftermath

Aftermath

BP, Chevron, Cumberland Farms and other companies that acquired former Gulf operations continued to use the Gulf name through the early 1990s. This caused consumer confusion in the US retail market as the parent companies would not accept each others' credit cards. All former Gulf stations franchised by BP and Chevron in the United States have since been converted to those names. Gulf Oil Limited Partnership (GOLP), based in Framingham, Massachusetts, has bought a license for North American rights to the Gulf brand from Chevron. Chevron still owned the Gulf brand, but was making almost no direct use of it. In January 2010, GOLP bought the entire brand from Chevron and began a nationwide expansion campaign. GOLP operates a distribution network reaching from Maine to Ohio. Most Gulf-branded filling stations in North America are owned by Cumberland Farms of Framingham, which owns a two-thirds interest in GOLP. In addition there are some independently owned franchises still operating under the Gulf brand within North America, such as the American Refining Group, which is licensed by Chevron to blend and distribute Gulf-branded lubricants.

Gulf Oil International (GOI): owns the rights to the Gulf brand outside the United States, Spain & Portugal. It is owned by the Hinduja Group. GOI trades mainly in lubricants, oils, and greases. GOI is also involved in franchising the Gulf brand to operators in the petroleum and automotive sectors; Gulf-branded filling stations can be found in several countries including the UK, Belgium, Germany, Ireland, the Slovak & Czech Republics, the Netherlands, Jordan, Finland and Turkey. GOI has direct and indirect interests in a number of businesses that use the Gulf brand under license.

The Canadian exploration and production arm of Gulf Oil continued as an independent oil company (Gulf Canada Resources) until its acquisition by Conoco in 2002.

Most Gulf downstream operations in Europe were sold to the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation in early 1983. The associated Gulf filling stations were converted to trade under the Q8 brand by 1988. However, attempts to sell Gulf Oil (Great Britain) to KPC failed because of irrevocable GOC guarantees given earlier in regard to bonds issued to finance the construction of refinery facilities in the UK. GO(GB) was taken over by Chevron and its stations continued to use the Gulf brand name and insignia until 1997 when the network was sold to Shell, although by this stage a fairly large proportion of Gulf stations were supplied by jobbers rather than Gulf Oil (GB). Gulf completely withdrew from the UK in 1997. This represented the end of the last major "downstream" use of the Gulf brand by Chevron.