If you buy your gas at a Texaco station, better do it quick: Most Texaco stations will be going away:
Shell Oil Co. plans to transform about 370 Houston-area Texaco stations into Shells by the middle of next year. The process started this week.Although the number of Texaco stations will be greatly reduced -- going from the brand in Houston with the most stations to one of the least -- a handful that don't fit Shell's criteria will be allowed to sell under the Texaco brand.
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Origins of the switch go back to when Shell acquired the exclusive rights to the Texaco brand in the United States as the result of a Federal Trade Commission decision requiring divestiture as a condition to letting the October 2001 merger between Chevron and Texaco proceed. The merger had been announced a year earlier.
By last February, Shell had decided that a two-brand strategy wouldn't work. The changeover will cost it about $530 million nationwide, with the cost per station running $40,000 to $80,000.
Ultimately, Shell expects to convert the bulk of its 13,000 Texaco stations nationwide.