Ampol

Ampol Limited purchases, refines, distributes, and markets petroleum products in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, and the United States. The company operates through Convenience Retail, and Fuels and Infrastructure segments. The Convenience Retail segment sells fuels through Ampol's network of stores. The Fuels and Infrastructure segment wholesales fuels and lubricant supplies. It distributes its products through a network of depots, diesel stops, marine facilities, and service station sites. The company was formerly known as Caltex Australia Limited and changed its name to Ampol Limited in May 2020. Ampol Limited was founded in 1900 and is based in Alexandria, Australia.

Early history

Today's Ampol Limited traces its history back to two independent businesses that merged in 1995, Caltex Australia Ltd and Ampol .

Caltex

Texas Company products were first sold in Australia in 1900. Texas Company Australasia Limited was incorporated in New South Wales in 1918. In June 1936, Caltex was formed in the United States as a joint venture between Standard Oil Company of California and Texaco. The Caltex brand name began to be used for the first time in Australia five years later in 1941.Also in 1936, the national company, California Asphalt Products Pty Ltd was incorporated in May. 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 again to Caltex Australia Ltd in March 1981. As for its subsidiaries, Texas Company Australasia Limited changed its name to Caltex Petroleum Pty Ltd in 1968.Since incorporation, Caltex Australia operated in the country through its subsidiary Caltex Oil Pty Ltd. It opened the Kurnell Refinery in 1956. It took over Golden Fleece in 1981.

Ampol

The Australian Motorists Petrol Company, simply known as Ampol, was incorporated by Sir William Gaston 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.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

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. In May 1995, the two companies merged 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 Petroleum Australia Ltd in 1998. In exchange, Pioneer received 90 million Caltex Australia shares . After the sale, Caltex Australia was owned by 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 the international Caltex company, which later became fully owned by Chevron Corporation in 2001. The 50% Chevron shareholding and 50% ASX shareholding of Caltex Australia remained in this composition until 2015.

In February 1999, Caltex opened a "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.

Later history

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 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 an Caltex independent franchisee but set its own retail prices.

Chevron sale

In March 2015, Chevron sold its 50% stake in Caltex Australia . However, Caltex Australia was allowed to continue to use the Caltex brand under a trademark licence.

In November 2019, Alimentation Couche-Tard proposed an offer to acquire Caltex Australia. Initially declined by the Caltex Australia board, ATD proposed an improved offer in February 2020, and the board agreed to further engage with ATD. Separately in the same month, the EG Group also proposed an offer to acquire Caltex Australia, which was declined by the Caltex Australia board. In April 2020, ATD decided not to proceed with its acquisition proposal due to the high level of economic uncertainty caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, but will seek to re-engage once there is sufficient clarity to the global economic outlook.

Recent history

Rebrand to Ampol

After the sale of Chevron's 50% share, Caltex Australia continued to use the Caltex brand under a trademark license agreement. Under the terms of the agreement, the minimum period of notice required when terminating without cause was six months. In December 2019, Caltex Australia announced that Chevron had given notice to terminate the trademark licence agreement for the use of the Caltex brand in Australia, effective from 30 June 2020. The licence agreement termination followed Chevron announcing it would re-enter the Australian market and acquire Puma Energy's Australian operations and intending to rebrand them under the Caltex brand.Caltex Australia proposed to rebrand itself back as Ampol, which was approved by more than 99% of shareholders during the annual general meeting on 14 May 2020. Caltex Australia cited continued high recognition and regard for the Ampol brand, and the move was expected to save the company $20 million per year in licensing fees to Chevron.Ampol would have to cease using the licensed Caltex trademarks thirty months after the termination of the trademark licence agreement . The first part of the work-out period was an 18-month "exclusivity period" where Ampol had exclusive rights to use the Caltex brand until 31 December 2021. The remaining twelve months until 31 December 2022 were the "non-exclusivity period", where both Chevron and Ampol could use the Caltex brand at the same time. After this date, Ampol would no longer be authorised to use the Caltex brand. This meant the rebranding to Ampol had to be completed by 31 December 2022.Ampol planned to rebrand its sites in Sydney and Melbourne in August 2020, followed by Brisbane and Adelaide in October 2020, Perth in November 2020 and nationally in 2021. The Granville and Concord sites along Parramatta Road in Sydney were the first two sites to be rebranded to Ampol on 21 August 2020. The Star Mart store branding was also rebranded as Foodary.

In late 2020, EG Australia, the owner of former Woolworths service stations co-branded with Caltex, sued Ampol regarding the latter's rebranding, accusing them of "misleading or deceptive conduct". When EG acquired the stores from Woolworths in April 2019, it also inherited the agreement which allowed the use of the Caltex brand. EG accused Ampol of making "false representations" about the status of the latter's branding agreement with Chevron in that the then-Caltex Australia could use the Caltex brand for a long time. EG also accused Ampol for failing to disclose that the latter was already locked in discussions with Chevron about the future of the trademark licence agreement. The legal dispute was mutually resolved in April 2022 with all legal proceedings dropped. The resolution allowed Ampol to continue to be the exclusive supplier to all EG stores under the agreement, and paved the way for the rebranding from Caltex to Ampol in EG stores by the end of the year.In 2021, Chevron also sued Ampol for breaching the Caltex trade mark licensing agreement, regarding the continued use of the red canopy fascia in its rebranded service stations, continuing to promote and accept the Caltex StarCard loyalty card at Ampol service stations, and continuing to use Caltex and StarCard trade marks in conjunction with Ampol trade marks. Chevron argued that these infringed on Chevron's registered trademarks, and that these were misleading and deceptive conduct, and hence contravening the Australian Consumer Law. The Federal Court of Australia ruled that the use of the red canopy fascia was not misleading or deceptive as "no reasonable consumer was likely to think that there is any relevant association between the two entities or that the Caltex and Ampol brands are from the same stable". The court also ruled that the accepting the use of StarCard also was not misleading or deceptive as it was "obvious to a reasonable consumer" that "branded methods of payment may be accepted by businesses that are unrelated to the owner of the payment method brand". However, the court ruled that advertising and offering to accept a StarCard was in breach of the trade mark licensing agreement, in that the use of licensed marks in conjunction with its own trade mark should only be "for the sole purpose of educating customers that it is transitioning away" from the licensed marks. Therefore, the advertising with words such as "StarCard accepted here" or "StarCard will be accepted at Ampol branded sites" was for commercial use and not "for the sole purpose of educating customers". Even so, this conduct was not misleading or deceptive. Consequently, Ampol was ordered to cease using those statements at Ampol stations or in advertising with effect from 2 August 2021.

Ampol

Ampol partnered with Evie to provide 350 kW electric car chargers at Ampol service stations.On 17 May 2022, Ampol began to be listed on the New Zealand's Exchange , using the same trading symbol ALD as its Australian listing. Ampol would retain its primary listing on the ASX.