CALGARY, Alberta -- Imperial Oil Ltd. said Thursday it has no plans to sell off the 700 Esso-branded gasoline stations it owns in Canada, reported The Calgary Herald, even though its majority owner ExxonMobil Corp. expects to divest its company-owned retail network in the United States. Imperial is 69.6% owned by ExxonMobil.
Imperial, a major Canadian oil producer and refiner, owns 700 of about 1,900 Esso stations in the country, but does not directly operate the sites, said the report.
The company does not expect to follow Exxon, which said Thursday it planned to get out of the [image-nocss] retail gasoline business by selling the 2,200 stations—including 820 directly operated—it owns in the United States under the Exxon and Mobil banners. There are about 12,000 ExxonMobil branded stations in the United States.
Exxon's plan "has no implications for Canada," Robert Theberge, a spokesperson for Calgary, Alberta-based Imperial, told the newspaper.
Click hereto view CSP Daily News coverage of ExxonMobil's announced divestment.Elsewhere in Canada, after clamping down on a network of gasoline cartels in Quebec for price-fixing, the federal Competition Bureau said it is continuing to investigate whether other Canadians are also getting scammed at the pump, said the Canadian Press.Criminal charges laid Thursday against 13 people and 11 companies for allegedly fixing gasoline prices in Quebec are the first in Canada since 1955. Three companies, including Ultramar Ltd., pleaded guilty and were fined a total of $2 million, while a former Ultramar employee received a $50,000 fine.
Competition officials are promising to find out how widespread price-fixing is. "We follow the gas market very closely," bureau commissioner Sheridan Scott said during a news conference in Montreal as she announced the various criminal charges. "I can assure you that the Competition Bureau will not hesitate to take action to stop price fixing in this industry."
Ultramar, the only major oil company being investigated, was slapped with a $1.85-million fine after acknowledging its role, the report said.
"This is one of the top fines that we have been able to attain for domestic cartels," Scott said. She stressed there was no evidence that Ultramar's head office was directly involved in the cartel."This is obviously a regrettable situation that we deplore," Christian Houle, Ultramar motorist sales network vice-president, said in a statement cited by the news agency.
The other accused companies are mainly local franchisees operating under the banner of such recognizable brands as Esso and Shell. Les Petroles Therrien Inc., operating under the Petro-T banner, and Distributions Petrolieres Therrien were fined a combined $179,000.
Jacques Ouellet, an Ultramar employee who has since left the company, was fined $50,000.
Consumer groups speculated the charges will only feed long-simmering suspicions of widespread collusion among gasoline retailers. "I think this story will boost the anger of consumers regarding the price of gasoline," Charles Tanguay, spokespersonn for a Quebec association of 11 consumer protection groups, told CP.
Tanguay added some of the "fleeced" clients will likely resort to a class-action lawsuit to attempt to recoup some of their money.
Scott indicated the companies charged represented only a fraction of the total number of stations that took part in the various cartels that operated in Thetford Mines, Victoriaville, Magog and Sherbrooke. In Victoriaville, 23 of the city's 24 gas stations are believed to have been colluding over the price of gasoline. More than 80 stations took part in Sherbrooke.
Scott refused to put an exact dollar figure on the alleged conspiracy. But she claimed that if the four cartels had managed to jack up the price of gasoline by just one cent for an entire year, motorists would be out a collective $2 million.
The charges come following an investigation that began in 2004. Scott said the bulk of the bureau's evidence comes from thousands of Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) wiretaps where suspects were overheard establishing a common price and date when it would be raised. The competition bureau also carried out more than 90 search warrants, seizing bills and other financial evidence.
The suspected companies face a maximum $10 million in fines under the conspiracy charges, while the individuals face up to five years in jail.
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