Pennzoil

Pennzoil is an oil company originally founded in Oil City, Pennsylvania. In 1963, South Penn Oil merged with Zapata Petroleum to become Pennzoil. During the 1990s, the company moved its offices to Houston, Texas. It was then headquartered in Pennzoil Place, a recognizable Houston skyscraper. In 1998, the company merged with onetime rival Quaker State to form Pennzoil-Quaker State. In 2002, the Royal Dutch/Shell Group purchased Pennzoil-Quaker State to form SOPUS--Shell Oil Products US. Both Pennzoil and Quaker State are now marketed together as a result.

Products

The following are products offered from Pennzoil:

Motor Oils Pennzoil motor oils is effectively the mainstay of the Pennzoil brand name. Chief rivals include Castrol, Valvoline, and Havoline.
Jiffy Lube The company's oil change shop. A store front for oil changes.
Gasoline Pennzoil sells gasoline to motorists, mostly in western Pennsylvania. See more in the description below.

Gasoline

Though not much emphasis has ever been placed on gasoline, Pennzoil does sell gas. In the early parts of the company's history, the gas stations were branded as "Pennzip", though they were later changed to "Pennzoil". For decades, Pennzoil gas stations were mostly marketed in western Pennsylvania, western New York, northern and eastern Ohio, and northern West Virginia. Pennzoil doesn't even make a single reference to the gasoline side of the business on the company's website.

In the 1990's, Pennzoil gas did have somewhat of a revival when Pittsburgh area convenience store chain Cogo's began cobranding themselves with Pennzoil. The cobranding only lasted a few years, and Cogo's switched brands to BP in 2001.

After Shell's purchase of Pennzoil, there was the possibility that the remaining Pennzoil stations--mostly in western PA--would be converted to Shell as part of the company's aggressive movement to expand nationally. This hasn't happened, but all company-owned Pennzoil gas stations with conveinence stores (mostly located in the New Castle, Pennsylvania area) began cobranding themselves with 7-Eleven in 2003, with more emphasis placed on the 7-Eleven moniker than Pennzoil itself. Most of the other remaining Pennzoil stations are low-volume stations with garages.

Currently, the remaining Pennzoil stations appear to have been sold to either 7-Eleven or a franchisee, and have been in the process of converting the gasoline side to BP. This is likely the end of Pennzoil's gasoline side of the business.

'Pennzoil v. Texaco'

In 1984, Pennzoil made a verbal, yet still binding, contract with the Getty Oil company to purchase the company. The deal, however, was encroached upon by the Texaco oil company when it instead acquired Getty. In a landmark lawsuit presided over by Judge Solomon (Sol) Casseb of San Antonio, Pennzoil, represented by a legal team including Joe Jamail and Baine Kerr, won 10.53 billion dollars from Texaco. (The case was later settled for three billion.) Pennzoil paid Mr. Jamail one billion dollars and Mr. Kerr ten million for the victory.

Franchises (Jiffy Lube)

Jiffy Lube can be either publicly or privately traded. While many people own only one, two, or a few Jiffy Lube stores, some choose to go public and sell stock, or be large single franchises. Recently, however, there was a discrepancy with a privately traded company, and parts of the company are being broken off and sold to two private owners.

Allied Lube INC., owned by Richard Paek, is an examply of a Jiffy Lube Franchise.

Due to Pennzoil taking over Jiffy Lube, many cuts of perks are being made to franchises.

External links

Gourt Home::Gourt :: Pennzoil

Products

Gasoline

'Pennzoil v. Texaco'

Franchises (Jiffy Lube)

External links