what you pay for in a gallon of regular gasoline
by Me, April 7, 2002
Gas Breakdown:
I was bored today, and I wanted to do this research for a while. Most peopple have different, and sometime weird preferences for buying gas for their cars. Some people will not pump anything except Chevron. Others would dough out the extra dollars to pump at BP while the cheaper Arco is right across the street. Also, there are random people who will only use Castrol motor oil. Well, before you spend extra for quality you think you're getting, look at this breakdown of brand names and the companies that own them. There are little ironies for all you car nuts that do stuff like refuse to pump at Arco but only use Castrol motor oil.
| ConocoPhilips | Conoco, Philips 66, 76, Kendall, ExxonMobil(NE operations) |
| ExxonMobil | Esso, Exxon, Mobil |
| RoyalDutchShell | Shell, Texaco(Operations of brand name until 2004), Quaker State, Pennzoil | Ashland | Marthon, Speedway, Valvoline | BPAmoco | BP, Amoco, Arco, Castrol | ChevronTexaco | Chevron, Texaco(Shell controls the brand name until 2004), Caltex, Havoline |
Recombing Standard Oil
Also, another interesting thing I noticed is how gas companies are merging and all their names are now combinations of two or three old gas company names. So, I looked up what happened when the government broke up Standard Oil. It went into Standard Oil of New Jersey (Exxon), Standard Oil of New York (Mobil), Standard Oil [California] (Chevron), Standard Oil of Ohio (Sohio, arm of BP), Standard Oil of Indiana (Amoco), Continental Oil (Conoco), and Atlantic (ARCO). Guess what, these seven divisions have now shrinked to four companies. These merging activities are not as bad as some economists would say it is; They haven't reformed Standard Oil . . . yet. Just an interesting note.
Source: Websites of each gas company listed, Dept of Energy's Energy Information Administration, and http://www.virginia.edu/igpr/apagoilhistory.html.