August 9, 2011 [OPIS] - Gulf Oil has finally secured its own storage tanks at the Kinder Morgan terminals on Staten Island, N.Y. The Framingham, Massachusetts based Gulf will now be able to leverage its access to offshore and domestic supplies and add to its East Coast blending operations, which began earlier this year.
Sources say that Gulf has a direct storage lease and does not have to pay the more expensive tankage costs that come with subleasing from existing tenants. The company is believed to have access to over 500,000 bbl of clean products tank space for four years.
Previously, Gulf had a sublease contract for tanks at Nustar’s Linden storage terminal, and it had carried out some limited blending at its own waterborne terminals in the Northeast when applicable.
The gasoline blending operation would allow Gulf to capture the blending margins, taking advantage of balancing blendstock costs and source cheaper components.
Gulf, which now has approximately 2500 branded sites in 30 states, is one of the Northeast’s largest wholesalers of refined petroleum products.
Besides distributing motor fuels through a network of retail stations, Gulf also supplies products to more than 70 other supply terminals.
Gulf supplies gasoline, heating oil, diesel fuel, jet fuel and kerosene through its terminal network as well as third party facilities at many additional locations. The company is looking to grow further on a branded and unbranded basis.
