Retail Petroleum Station Property Divestment

An oil company embarked on an aggressive plan to divest more than 770 of its retail petroleum stations located throughout 15 states in the US. The divestment strategy was to sell the sites as is and retain the environmental liability in order to secure the highest market value. With Arcadis’ experience in successfully extinguishing environmental liabilities and securing regulatory closure, the company turned to Arcadis. 

Arcadis developed a solution for the oil company to meet their divestment goals within 10 years, well in advance of their original schedule. This plan involved assembling portfolios rather than selling individual sites, and it entailed the creation of portfolio-specific project management tools to streamline execution. The plan also called for using innovative clean up technologies, enabling the company to leverage its experience from one site across dozens of other sites to accelerate closure. These strategies lowered the cost of clean  up significantly.

Within four years, 40 percent of the sites were market-ready. To date, the company has received regulatory closure for 72 percent of the sites, substantially extinguishing environmental liabilities associated with these and other retail sites that are still in their portfolio. As the highly competitive oil and gas business continues to evolve, this oil company is well positioned to improve profitability, provide higher returns for shareholders and plan for growth.