The familiar green and white Hess signs that dot the Woodbridge landscape and much of New Jersey may soon be no more.
Hess Corporation announced Monday in a letter to shareholders at their annual meeting that it was divesting itself of its retail gasoline and convenience store operations, in an effort to restructure the company and improve its balance sheet.
The move will affect 1,350 gas stations - many owned by Hess itself - that operate in 18 states on the Eastern Seaboard. The gas stations serve as many as 1.3 million customers a day, according to a report in Supermarket News.
Hess did not say when it would begin either closing or selling off its gas stations, although a press release accompanying the news said that their closure, along with other moves to improve the company's bottom line, would be instituted by 2014.
The divesting of the company's gas station arm is part of a multi-year effort of Hess to "transform" itself into an oil 'exploration and production' firm, as stated in the release.
The changes began in January, when Hess announced it would be permanently shutting its oil refineries, including the one located in the Port Reading section of Woodbridge. Hess said it was leaving the gasoline refining business because of weak demand and the cost of complying with E.P.A. regulations.
The refinery was closed at the end of February.
The Hess retail marketing division and company headquarters is located in the Hess corporate headquarters building on Route 9 in Woodbridge. The firm has said that the structure, an iconic landmark in the township, will remain open despite the divestiture of its various enterprises.
Deep water drilling is a great opportunity, but the technology and reliability just doesn't make it worth it (from a profit and PR standpoint). Ask BP, the gulf catastrophe set their company back years. They were doing those operations because they were desperate, not because they were good at it. Who wants to follow in their footsteps unless they can develop a better way of doing it that minimizes risk? Same for Arctic drilling. Sounds easy, but existing techniques and technological limitations make it hard. Ask Shell, they just quit because they were not up to the challenge. If an oil company wants to make even bigger profits (not that they aren't already reaping in historic revenues), it needs to drill hard-to-get oil in a safe and low-risk manner. That means technology and innovation. So maybe Hess knows what it's doing. Just a theory.
(b) there is plenty of oil. Hess is still in the business of oil. The problem is that refining oil into gasoline and selling it at the wholesale and retail level is not that profitable due to all of the tree huggers and enviro-terrorist wackos and this illegal administration. Forget the fact that the guy was born in kenya for a minute - he doesnt even believe that they congress needs to pass laws! He thinks he is the king and can just rule by decree - look what he is trying to do with the cap and trade nonsense. Everyone knows that it is a ridiculous theory and the congress and senate will not pass the laws that the kenyan and his enviro terrorists want so he thinks he can do it himself. Hopefully he will be tried for war crimes and thrown in a kenyan prison.
11:49 am on Tuesday, March 5, 2013 Unless I am mistaken, Brent Crude briefly replaced Nikki Sixx back in the early 90's. Excuse me Peter but I think your theory is about as smart as your previous comment.
And I'm not sure that exploration is a bad business to get into, for the reasons I noted plus many others none of us are privy to.
I have to say the HESS stations will be missed, along with the annual trucks at Christmas.
http://www.citgo.com/Home.jsp to find a station near you!