Gasoline Alley pumps profile

By SIMON HENDERY

A small group of independent petrol stations plans to more than double its market share.

Gasoline Alley Services, an 18-month-old collective of 21 service stations, hopes to sign up a further 30 independent operators by the end of this year.

Gasoline Alley's members, including four in Auckland, trade under the black and orange "gas" logo. The company buys its petrol and diesel from Caltex.

Its national business manager, Phil Murray, who is one of six staff at Gasoline Alley's Parnell office, said the company eventually hoped to sign up 200 operators.

"There are advantages for both us and Caltex. Caltex treats us as one customer.

"Rather than it dealing with [potentially] 200 individual owners for payment, we collect all the payments.

"From Caltex's point of view it's very easy accounting. For doing that we get a discount from Caltex [off the cost of product] so we make our money there."

Mr Murray said that as the big oil companies tried to make their operations more efficient, they tended to focus on boosting their larger company-owned or company-leased sites. These gave them the best market exposure.

"They put a lot of money into those sites at the expense of the others. That's where we come into it the other sites are still good business."

It was up to each operator within the Gasoline Alley group to set his or her own pump price.

"We've got some that are very competitive and like to be cheaper than the bigger companies.

"Others feel they can't afford to do that so they try to match the market."

Although Gasoline Alley stations had less than 1 per cent of the petrol market, the company planned to boost its profile.

A $1.2 million site was being built on Great South Rd, in Otahuhu, and other Auckland stations would trade under the company name by the end of the year.

"The only way independents can survive in the long term, I believe, is by uniting with a company like ourselves," Mr Murray said.

"As our sales go up in volume, the arrangement with resellers is that the discount we receive from Caltex is split with our retailers."

Caltex's national commercial manager, Peter Hazael, said Gasoline Alley provided a necessary service, especially in smaller centres.

"It gives us an added fillip in the marketplace in that service stations that may have been unprofitable under the [traditional] regime are now taken over by someone else," he said.

"We just sell our fuel, diesel and oil products into them, which gives us added coverage of the country."