The first rebranded Ampol petrol station has been unveiled as part of the nationwide overhaul that will return the brand to the nation’s motorways.
Ampol, which is rebranding from Caltex Australia, will launch its first new-look petrol stations in Sydney on Friday.
The outlets, in Concord and Granville, are the first of 1900 which will be converted over the next two years. “It’s a really important milestone for us is bringing back Ampol,” chief executive Matthew Halliday said.
“It looks fantastic. Ampol is a brand people know and love and I think Australians, especially in a post-COVID environment, really want to support local companies.”
Mr Halliday said launching the first rebranded outlets in Sydney was a nod to the company’s long history in the city.
The Australian Motorists Petrol company, which later became Ampol, was founded in a Sydney lawyer’s office in 1936.
It took its first oil delivery at a terminal and storage facility at White Bay on Sydney Harbour in 1937 and the first Ampol retail site opened in Mosman in 1952.
Ampol petrol stations in Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth will pop up in the coming months. A total of 24 sites are set to be converted by the end of the year
The first Melbourne rebrand will be at Altona North in October.
Ampol has overhauled its retail offering in recent years, rolling out a new Foodary convenience chain and increasing the number of Woolworths Metro outlets on offer.
Earlier this month it announced a tie-up with Uber Eats to provide home deliveries of over-the-counter pharmaceuticals such as Panadol.
Mr Halliday said the initiative was one of many ways the nation’s biggest fuel refiner and supplier was looking to make better use of its petrol station network.
“We’ve seen really significant growth in delivery and during COVID it has gone to another level,” he said.
Ampol was forced to resurrect its dormant brand after US oil titan Chevron terminated a licence agreement that allowed it to use the Caltex name.
That move came after Chevron, which sold out of what was Caltex Australia in 2015, returned to the Australian market by last year paying $425m for the Puma Energy petrol station chain.
Ampol is allowed to keep using the Caltex name for the next two years. After that, Chevron will convert the 360 Puma stations to Caltex.
Britain’s Euro Garages is converting the 530 petrol stations it bought from Woolworths for $1.73bn in 2018 to its EG Euro Garages name.
