By BENOIT FAUCON
November 15, 2007 4:26 p.m.
LONDON — BP PLC said Thursday it would sell most of its U.S.-owned or operated convenience stores, cutting about 10,000 jobs, as it begins a wide-ranging restructuring.
The U.K. oil company said the majority of the sites will be sold to franchisees over the next two years. The move places BP as the latest oil giant to dramatically scale back its convenience store operations.
In the past few years, Royal Dutch Shell PLC, ConocoPhillips and Chevron Corp. have all reduced their retail marketing positions.
ConocoPhillips’s $830 million sale of its Circle K stores was one of the largest moves in the sector. Shell’s more recent sale of 250 gasoline stations in and around Southern California to Tesoro Corp. showed independent refiners’ growing interest in gasoline stations surrounding their refineries.
The sale of more than 700 stores will eliminate 9,500 BP convenience store jobs and 350 business support staff, the company said. About 100 employees from BP’s pipelines and logistics unit will also be affected, it said.
A BP spokesman said the buyers of convenience stores often keep the staff at the sites they buy.
“The business change is in line with BP’s October reorganization announcement aimed at simplifying the company and improving performance,” the company’s statement said.
New Chief Executive Tony Hayward is restructuring the company after a series of U.S. incidents that included a deadly Texas refinery blast in 2005 and a partial shutdown of an Alaskan pipeline in 2006. He has told staff that divestments could amount to $2 billion a year, according to an internal document. BP has declined to comment on the figure.
Write to Benoit Faucon at [email protected]
This website and sisters royaldutchshellplc.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, and shellnews.net, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.
Royal Dutch Shell conspired directly with Hitler, financed the Nazi Party, was anti-Semitic and sold out its own Dutch Jewish employees to the Nazis. Shell had a close relationship with the Nazis during and after the reign of Sir Henri Deterding, an ardent Nazi, and the founder and decades long leader of the Royal Dutch Shell Group. His burial ceremony, which had all the trappings of a state funeral, was held at his private estate in Mecklenburg, Germany. The spectacle (photographs below) included a funeral procession led by a horse drawn funeral hearse with senior Nazis officials and senior Royal Dutch Shell directors in attendance, Nazi salutes at the graveside, swastika banners on display and wreaths and personal tributes from Adolf Hitler and Reichsmarschall, Hermann Goring. Deterding was an honored associate and supporter of Hitler and a personal friend of Goring.
Deterding was the guest of Hitler during a four day summit meeting at Berchtesgaden. Sir Henri and Hitler both had ambitions on Russian oil fields. Only an honored personal guest would be rewarded with a private four day meeting at Hitler’s mountain top retreat.
IN JULY 2007, MR BILL CAMPBELL (ABOVE, A RETIRED GROUP AUDITOR OF SHELL INTERNATIONAL SENT AN EMAIL TO EVERY UK MP AND MEMBER OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS: 
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A head-cut image of Alfred Donovan (now deceased) appears courtesy of The Wall Street Journal.
