Sunoco
Sunoco LP is an American vehicle gasoline master limited partnership company organized under Delaware state law and headquartered in Dallas, Texas. Dating back to 1886, the company has transformed from a vertically integrated energy company to a distributor of fuels and operator of energy infrastructure. It was previously engaged in oil, natural gas exploration and production, refining, chemical manufacturing, and retail fuel sales, but divested these businesses.
The partnership was known as Sun Oil Company from 1890 to 1976, and as Sun Company Inc. from 1976 to 1998. The Sunoco name is a contraction of SUN Oil COmpany.
Its current operational focus dates back to 2018, when it divested the noncore convenience store operations to 7-Eleven for $3.2 billion, which allowed for Sunoco LP to improve its financial position. The transaction also provided a long-term take or pay fuel supply agreement with 7-Eleven to generate consistent earnings and cash flows. As of 2024, Sunoco still operates 76 retail locations, all of which are located in New Jersey and Hawaii, the latter branded as Aloha Petroleum, Ltd..
As of 2024, the company distributes over of fuel across more than 40 U.S. states and territories, making it one of the largest independent fuel distributors in the United States. Its midstream operations include a network of approximately of pipeline and over 100 terminals. It has by far the largest number of gas stations in Pennsylvania at over 800 locations, more than triple that of second-place ExxonMobil, though it is second to convenience store chain Sheetz in total fuel sales in the state.
History
1800s to 1950s: founding and growth
The partnership began as The Peoples Natural Gas Company in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In 1886, its partners Joseph Newton Pew, Philip Pisano, and Edward O. Emerson decided to expand their fuel business with a stake in the new oil discoveries in Ohio and Pennsylvania. Four years later, the growing enterprise became the Sun Oil Company of Ohio. Sun Oil diversified quickly and became active in the production and distribution of oil as well as processing and marketing refined products. By 1901, the company was incorporated in New Jersey as Sun Company, Inc.In 1902, the Sun Oil Refining Company was chartered in Texas, as it turned its interest to the new Spindletop field in Texas. Joseph Newton Pew's nephew, J. Edgar Pew, was able to buy the storage and transportation assets of Lone Star and Crescent Oil Company at a receivership auction. Spindletop oil was then shipped to the company's Marcus Hook, Pennsylvania, refinery.
Pew's sons, J. Howard Pew and Joseph N. Pew, Jr. would take over the company after their father's death.
With a growing portfolio of oil fields and refineries, Sun opened its first service station in Ardmore, Pennsylvania, in 1920. In 1922, it changed its name back to Sun Oil Company and, in 1925, it became a public company via an initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange. Sun Oil ranked 39th among United States corporations in the value of World War II production contracts. The company expanded internationally following the war. Its first Canadian refinery was built in 1953 in Sarnia, Ontario, home to a burgeoning new petrochemical industry. Sun Oil established a facility at Venezuela's Lake Maracaibo in 1957, which produced over a billion barrels before the operation was nationalized in 1975.
In 1956, the company introduced "CustomBlended" fuel pumps, an innovation that allowed customers of Sunoco service stations to choose from several octane ratings through a single pump. Sunoco stations offered as many as eight grades of "CustomBlended" fuels from its "Dial A Grade/Blend Selector" pumps ranging from subregular Sunoco 190 to Sunoco 260 and super-premium grade of 102 octane. The Sunoco 260 was advertised as "The Highest Octane Fuel You Can Buy!" and very popular with operators of V8powered muscle cars of the 1960s.
1960s to 1990s: acquisitions and branding
In 1967, Sun Oil established its Great Canadian Oil Sands Limited facility in northern Alberta, Canada to access the estimated 300 billion barrels of extractable oil in the Athabasca oil sands.In 1968, Sun Oil merged with Tulsa, Oklahomabased Sunray DX Oil Company, which refined and marketed fuel under the DX brand in several midwestern states, and included several refineries. Its Tulsa refinery was operated by the company until its sale in June 2009 to Holly Corporation of Dallas. This move expanded Sun Oil's marketing area into the midcontinent region.
The company continued marketing its petroleum products under both the Sunoco and DX brands through the 1970s and into the 1980s. In the late 1980s, it began rebranding DX stations in the Midwest to the Sunoco brand, but by the early 1990s, they pulled out of virtually all areas in the southeastern U.S. and west of the Mississippi, resulting in the closing and rebranding of service stations and jobbers to other brands in those areas, notably Sinclair in Oklahoma and Kerr-McGee and Chevron in Arkansas.
With increased diversification, Sun Oil Company was renamed Sun Company in 1976. In 1980, Sun acquired the U.S. oil and gas properties of Texas Pacific Oil Company, Inc., a subsidiary of The Seagram Company Ltd, for U.S.$2.3 billion the second largest acquisition in U.S. history to that date.
Through the 1980s, Sun developed oil interests in the North Sea and offshore China and expanded its holdings in both oil and coal with additional U.S. business acquisitions. In 1983, the company launched Sunoco ULTRA 94, the market's highest octane unleaded fuel. Then in 1988, Sun undertook a restructuring to segregate its domestic oil and fuel exploration and production business and focus the company on its refining and marketing business. This led to the acquisition of Atlantic Refining and Marketing, including its Philadelphia refinery which was later merged with the former Gulf Oil refinery that Sunoco acquired from Chevron.
By the 1990s, the company had departed the international exploration business and was fully dedicated to its branded products and services. In 1994, Sun acquired the Philadelphia Chevron Oil refinery consolidating operations with its own adjacent which it had acquired with Atlantic. It sold its remaining interest in Canada's Suncor Energy in 1995 but markets products from two refineries one in Toledo, Ohio, and the other Sarnia, Ontario in joint ventures. In 1998, Sun Company, Inc. became Sunoco, Inc. In 2011 the Toledo facility was sold to PBF Energy, Inc.
In 1998, Sunoco acquired the chemical business of Allied Signal, including a phenol plant. The business was renamed as "Sunoco Chemicals, Inc." In 2011, the plant was acquired by Honeywell for $85 million.
2000s
In 2003, Speedway LLC, then a subsidiary of Marathon Petroleum, sold 193 convenience stores to Sunoco. It also acquired service stations from Coastal Petroleum.In 2004, Sunoco replaced the ConocoPhillips' 76 brand as the Official Fuel of NASCAR.
After ConocoPhillips abandoned the marketing of the Mobil brand name in the Washington, D.C. area, Sunoco purchased these rights, converted Maryland and Virginia Mobil stations to the Sunoco brand, bringing the APlus convenience store with them prior to this, these stations had convenience stores under the Circle K or On the Run brands.
In September 2009, Sunoco sold its retail heating oil and propane distribution business to Superior Plus for $82.5 million in cash.
In Canada, the Sunoco brand was licensed for the Ontario retail fuel station operations of Suncor Energy until 2010. Following Suncor's acquisition of Petro-Canada, all Canadian Sunoco outlets were converted to PetroCanada branding, except for one location in Port Colborne, Ontario, which closed in 2023.
In December 2010, Sunoco sold its refinery in Toledo, Ohio, to PBF Energy, Inc. for $400 million. Effective September 6, 2011, Sunoco announced that it would exit the crude oil refining business and seek to sell its Philadelphia and Marcus Hook, Pennsylvania refineries by mid-2012. The company stated that its cost for exiting the refining business could be as high as $2.7 billion. According to one report, it had lost some $800 million on refining operations since 2009; an earlier report provided a figure of $772 million.
On December 1, 2011, Sunoco announced it would accelerate closure of the Marcus Hook facility. The Marcus Hook facility, founded in 1902 and covering 781 acres, was dedicated exclusively to the processing of light sweet crude oil; this processing focus combined with volatility in crude oil prices are considered contributing factors to both this refinery's closure and Sunoco's exit from the refinery business.
In 2012, Sunoco demolished its Eagle Point refinery complex in West Deptford Township, New Jersey, which had been idle since 2010.
In September 2012, Sunoco formed a joint venture with The Carlyle Group, allowing for the continuation of operations at the Philadelphia refinery, and temporarily saving over 800 jobs. However, on January 22, 2018, the joint venture, named Philadelphia Energy Solutions, filed for bankruptcy.
Environmental record
On June 21, 2019, a damaging fire occurred at a 30,000 bpcd alkylation unit in Philadelphia. The explosion of the alkylation unit triggered a massive fireball and caused nearby homes to shake. A few days later, on June 26 the refinery complex announced it would cease operations and shut down.In 2014, Sunoco was one of 50 companies sued by Pennsylvania, which alleged that the companies polluted waters with MTBE, a fuel additive.
In 2000, Sunoco leaked of oil into the John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge at Tinicum in Pennsylvania, through a cracked pipe. Sunoco claimed its systems did not detect the leak, which was reported by a hiker in the Wildlife Refuge. The company installed advanced leak detection systems after removing the defective joints on that and associated pipelines.
In 1993, Sunoco became the first Fortune 500 company to endorse the CERES principles. The 10point conduct code includes public reporting of environmental record.