The Citgo petroleum corporation is pulling its product out of Iowa. That leaves about 40 Iowa gas stations looking for a new brand. One of the dealers left without a supplier is Hawkeye Oil Company in Cedar Rapids, where Vice-President Marshall Peterson says the decision didn’t come as a complete surprise.
Peterson says he’s heard “a lot of rumblings in the past year” about changes in the direction of the company’s marketing. This will be the second time Hawkeye Oil has had to change suppliers since 1990, but Peterson says customers should not notice a difference. Peterson says the Hawkeye Convenience Store line will continue and they’ll find another supplier for petroleum products.
“There’ll be some changes,” Peterson admits, but he says the products will be similar. Hawkeye Oil runs 11 convenience stores in eastern Iowa. In all, some 18-hundred independently-owned gas stations across the Midwest will be affected. Next spring, the Citgo brand will disappear from ten Midwestern states including Iowa and become less common in four others.
The Venezuela-based company says it’s had to buy oil from third parties to meet its supply contracts. Instead, it will now sell to fewer retailers from its refineries only.