Ampol
Ampol Limited is an Australian petroleum company headquartered in Sydney, New South Wales. Ampol is the largest transport energy distributor and retailer in Australia, with more than 1,800 Ampol-branded service stations across the country as of 2025. Ampol also operates in New Zealand through its subsidiary Z Energy.
Ampol was first incorporated in 1936 and would later be owned by Pioneer International. The Caltex brand in Australia separately began in 1941 to market petrol in its chain of service stations and was owned by Caltex Australia Limited. In 1995, the Ampol and Caltex operations merged to form Australian Petroleum, equally owned by Pioneer and Caltex Australia. Pioneer sold its shareholding between 1997 and 1998, and Caltex Australia gained full ownership of Australian Petroleum. Caltex Australia then gradually replaced the Ampol brand with Caltex over the next decade.
From 2001 until 2015, Caltex Australia was owned equally by American petroleum company Chevron Corporation and the Australian public until Chevron sold its shareholding to the public. In December 2019 Chevron, owner of the Caltex trademark, gave notice to Caltex Australia to terminate the licence agreement for use of the Caltex brand in Australia. In May 2020, the company officially changed its name and began to rebrand as Ampol, along with a new logo that was rolled out across Australia between 2020 and 2022.
History
Early history
Today's Ampol Limited traces its history back to two independent businesses that merged in 1995, Caltex Oil Pty Ltd and a previous incarnation of Ampol Limited. It became the largest downstream petroleum company in Australia. At the time of merger, Caltex Petroleum Corporation was owned equally by American petroleum companies Chevron Corporation and Texaco.Caltex (1918–1995)
Texas Company products were first sold in Australia in 1900. Texas Company Limited was incorporated in New South Wales in 1918, with operations across Australia and New Zealand. In June 1936, the Caltex joint venture was formed in the United States between Standard Oil Company of California and The Texas Company. Texas Company Limited eventually changed its name to Caltex Limited five years later on 2 January 1941.The legal entity Caltex Australia Limited originated from California Asphalt Products Pty Ltd which was incorporated in May 1935. The company became public in December 1958 and briefly became California Asphalt Products Ltd, before changing its name to Caltex Securities Ltd in February 1959 and finally to Caltex Australia Limited in March 1981.
Caltex Australia opened the Kurnell Refinery in 1956. In March 1981, Caltex Australia acquired Golden Fleece for. In July the same year, Caltex Australia floated 25% of its shares to the Australian public, the first multinational oil company to do so in Australia. Part of the proceeds of the offering would be used to pay the acquisition of Golden Fleece.
Until the merger with Ampol, Caltex Australia operated though its subsidiary Caltex Oil Pty Ltd. In 1976, through the subsidiary, Caltex Australia sued a surveying company and a dredge operator for compensation, due to the damage to a pipeline caused by their dredge in 1971. The pipeline connected Kurnell Refinery to an Australian Oil Refining Pty Ltd refinery under Botany Bay. Caltex argued it had to arrange alternative means of transport of petroleum products. After losing a ruling in the NSW Supreme Court, an appeal was successful in the High Court of Australia. Caltex Australia was compensated even though it did not own the pipeline, and while the general rule was that pure economic loss was not recoverable, it was subject to an exception in circumstances where the defendant could reasonably foresee that the particular plaintiff, as opposed to a general class of persons, would suffer loss as a result of their negligence.
Ampol (1936–1995)
The Australian Motorists Petrol Company, simply known as AMPOL, was incorporated by William Walkley in 1936 in New South Wales. This was in response to Australians' concerns about perceived inequitable petrol pricing, and allegations of transfer pricing by foreign oil companies to limit their tax liabilities in Australia.Walkley, along with William O'Callaghan and George Hutchison, approached the NRMA and offered to help it form a company to market petrol. Whilst deciding not to officially sponsor an oil company, members of the NRMA's board sought investors. In early 1936, an advertisement was printed in the NRMA's periodical publicising the float of Ampol. The first delivery of oil was received at White Bay in December 1937 and, by 1939, Walkley had joined the board of Ampol as managing director.
During World War II, Walkley served on the Oil Advisory Committee and the board of Pool Petroleum Pty Ltd, both of which supervised the distribution of petrol. This brought him into contact with Sir George Wales, who owned Alba Petroleum, which had a small market in South Australia and Tasmania. In 1945, Ampol purchased Alba Petroleum in an amicable takeover.
The company listed on the Australian Securities Exchange in 1948, and in 1949, it changed its name to Ampol Petroleum Ltd. The name change was largely to distinguish the company from minerals explorer Ampolex.
The first Ampol-owned service station opened in Military Road, Mosman, Sydney in 1952 with the help of Caltex. Within the following six years, 600 new Ampol service stations were opened. During 1959, Ampol expanded by opening a grease plant at Balmain, Sydney and commenced manufacturing tyres and tubes in Somerton, an outer suburb of Melbourne.
In 1965, Ampol's Lytton Oil Refinery in Brisbane came on stream. Pioneer International purchased a 20% stake in Ampol in 1979. From 1980 until 1984, Ampol owned a 66% shareholding in Brisbane television station TVQ.
In 1982, Ampol purchased the marketing and refining assets of Total Australia and changed its name to Ampol Limited. In 1988, Ampol was fully taken over by Pioneer International and delisted from the ASX the following year. The following year, Ampol purchased Solo, the largest independent retailer and distributor in Australia at that time.
Caltex Australia (1995–2020)
Merger between Caltex and Ampol
Prior to 1995, Caltex and Ampol were rivals in the petroleum industry in Australia. However, the two companies were still relatively small compared to other petroleum companies.Despite being rivals, the two companies had partnered up previously. In 1952, Caltex and Ampol established the West Australian Petroleum Pty Ltd as a joint venture for oil and gas exploration in Western Australia. In 1964, Caltex, Ampol and Golden Fleece partnered up to build Australian Lubricating Oil Refinery at Kurnell. The refinery was Australia's first lube oil plant.
In May 1995, Caltex and Ampol merged their petroleum, refining and marketing assets to form Australian Petroleum Pty Ltd, owned equally by Pioneer International and Caltex Australia. At the time, the merged company held a 28% market share in the petroleum industry. Under the merger plan, Pioneer would operate the new company while Caltex would be an investor. The Caltex brand was also planned to be retired and replaced by Ampol, but this never eventuated.
In 1997, Pioneer planned to leave the petroleum industry. First, in October 1997, Pioneer announced it would sell its 50% shareholding of APPL to Caltex Australia, finalised on 31 December 1997. This resulted in Caltex Australia gaining full ownership of the company and the name change of APPL to Caltex Australia Petroleum Pty Ltd on 1 January 1998. In exchange, Pioneer received 90 million Caltex Australia shares. After the sale, Caltex Australia was 50% owned by Caltex Petroleum Corporation and 16.66% by the public.
Then, in April 1998, Pioneer sold the 90 million Caltex Australia shares through public offering. This meant that 50% of Caltex Australia was then owned by the public. The remainder 50% continued to be owned by Caltex Petroleum Corporation. The latter would later become fully owned by Chevron Corporation in 2001. The 50% Chevron shareholding and 50% ASX shareholding of Caltex Australia then remained in this composition until 2015.
As a result of the merger, the WAPET oil and gas exploration joint venture was replaced by Chevron Australia Pty Ltd in February 2000. The owners of the Kurnell lube oil refinery, Golden Fleece, Ampol and Caltex, were under the same ownership, and the refinery was later called Caltex Lubricating Oil Refinery.
Later history (1998–2020)
In February 1999, Caltex opened an "IGA Everyday" supermarket at its service station in Bondi, to compete with Woolworths and Coles. Also in the same month, the new Caltex branding, introduced globally in 1996, was introduced to Australia. The existing network of convenience stores was also renamed "Star Mart". The Ampol brand was replaced but would remain in use at some service stations, primarily in country areas where customer loyalty and strong brand-recognition were factors.On 27 May 2009, Caltex Australia announced a proposal to acquire 302 Mobil and Mobil Quix service stations in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide, subject to approval of the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission. The ACCC subsequently opposed the takeover on the grounds that the acquisition could result in diminished competition. Caltex subsequently abandoned the acquisition, with Mobil entering into an agreement to sell the same sites to 7-Eleven Australia.
In late 2009 and early 2010, Caltex Australia announced the closure of the Caltex Lubricating Oil Refinery at Kurnell by 2011. At the time of closure, it was Australia's last remaining lube refinery. Caltex Australia claimed the refinery was "not viable" because it manufactured "outmoded lubricant products" and faced "declining feedstock sources".
In 2012, Caltex Australia wanted to establish an overseas trading arm to enable the importation of petrol into Australia. As Chevron Corporation already operate the Caltex brand overseas in areas like Singapore, Caltex Australia opted to name their Singaporean business after their former Australian business, Ampol.
Until 2014, Caltex operated two petroleum refineries in Australia: one at Kurnell in Sydney, and one at Lytton in Brisbane, each inherited from Caltex and Ampol respectively. The Kurnell Refinery ceased operations in 2014, and part of the existing infrastructure such as wharfs and tanks would be converted to a fuel importation and blending terminal. The conversion was completed in May 2019.
Between 2016 and 2017, Caltex acquired 46 Milemaker sites in Victoria, including 30 in Metropolitan Melbourne. Milemaker was a Caltex independent franchisee but set its own retail prices.