Improved C&I Lubricant Portfolio will Offer Best Technologies from Chevron and Texaco Product Lines under Chevron name

Chevron Products Company announced today that beginning July 14, Chevron and Texaco Commercial and Industrial (C&I) lubricants will be marketed under the Chevron brand in the United States and Canada. But before you conclude this means the valued and trusted Texaco brand name is going away, it's not.

Instead, from what Chevron tells JobbersWorld, the best of breed from each of the Chevron and Texaco product lines will be marketed under the master brand of Chevron. According to Chevron, this will allow the company and its marketers to leverage the strengths and market equity of the Chevron and Texaco sub brands by offering the strongest products from both lubricant lines under the Chevron name. The outcome will be a single lubricant portfolio combining the best technologies from the Texaco and Chevron C&I lines.

Examples of what this best of breed melding of sub-brands means for the Texaco and Chevron brands include the Texaco Rando, Capella, and Meropa brand names. These Texaco lubricants and others that are well respected and highly valued in the industry will remain in the Chevron product portfolio. The only difference is that they will be marketed under the Chevron master brand name. Similarly, the highly valued Chevron's Delo product family will remain the company's premier commercial-grade diesel lubricant line. And instead of the valued Texaco URSA brand name of diesel engine oil going away, it will remain in the lineup by displacing the Chevron RPM engine oil.

Vince Kyle, general manager, North American Finished Lubricants, Chevron Products Company says, "By bringing the Texaco and Chevron C&I lubricants together under one master brand, we have created a single, comprehensive line of high-quality products that have proven market value." Kyle adds "This move allows us to streamline the marketing, product and technical support as well as inventory management for both lubricants. The efficiencies we gain from this move enables us to focus our research and development efforts on the continued delivery of world-class products."

Chevron says this change will be a "rolling process" completed over a 90 day period for all products. In addition, it will not effect formulations. This transition applies only to Chevron's C&I product lines. The company remains committed to its consumer product lines, including Texaco Havoline and Texaco Xpress lubricants, throughout the United States and Canada. Texaco-branded C&I products in Latin America, Europe and Asia will not be affected.

From JobbersWorld's perspective, Chevron's brand pruning was inevitable and what some might say is a "no brainer" in today's market. Companies that took on other brands through acquisition are now supporting redundancies in their stables. And with rapidly rising costs, relatively flat demand, and shrinking budgets, there is little wonder why Chevron made the decision it did. It simply does not make sense to support product redundancies at any level in the value chain.

PetroLiance LLC, has announced its expansion into new territories in central Florida, expanding its existing footprint to make it the largest ExxonMobil distributor in the southeast region. Counties that PetroLiance will now serve from its new Orlando facility include: Hendry, Glades, Highlands, Hardee, DeSoto, Sarasota, Charlotte, Manatee, Brevard, Osceola, Polk, Hillsborough, Pinellas, Pasco, Hernando, Citrus, Sumter, Orange, Marion, Lake and Seminole. This is in addition to PetroLiance's existing counties of Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, St. Lucie, Indian River, Okeechobee, Lee and Collier.

According to PetroLiance CEO Kevin McCarter. "This new territory expansion underscores the confidence ExxonMobil has in PetroLiance in fulfilling service commitments to both national accounts and to grow the brand. This growth and confidence by ExxonMobil is the logical next step for PetroLiance's growth strategy. With this expansion, our lubricant volume will nearly double in Florida. Our goal is to ramp up and begin relationships with the direct business opportunities this provides PetroLiance. We are expanding our sales force and hiring new drivers and support personnel. We're very excited about this expansion opportunity and look forward to achieving our corporate objectives by a solid execution of our plan."

Based on JobbersWorld sources, PetroLiance's expansion is, in part, the result of ExMo's contract renewal process. According to our sources, ExMo did not renew its supply contract with one of Florida's largest ExxonMobil lubricant distributors. Consequently, that business is now moving over to PetroLiance. The unfortunate distributor got the bad news last month along with several others throughout the US.