At its first-quarter 2023 earnings call Tuesday, bp highlighted its pending acquisition of Westlake, Ohio-based TravelCenters of America and continued transformation to an integrated energy company.
bp expects the TA deal to almost double its convenience gross margin and provide growth opportunities across its transition growth engines, said Murray Auchincloss, bp’s chief financial officer. The company expects to complete the $1.3 billion acquisition in the second quarter, he said, and target around $800 million of EBITDA in 2025.
The deal, if approved by shareholders, would add about 280 sites to bp’s retail network, the company said.
- bp is No. 7 and TravelCenters of America is No. 29 on CSP’s Top 40 update to the 2022 Top 202 ranking of U.S. convenience-store chains by company-owned store count. Watch for the updated list in June.
Auchincloss also touched on bp’s momentum in executing its fast, on-the-go fleets electric vehicle charging strategy, with plans to roll out EV charging infrastructure in Spain and Portugal and its new global mobility agreement with Uber.
For first-quarter 2023, underlying earnings were $5 billion, and the company reduced net debt to $21.2 billion, Auchincloss said. Compared to fourth-quarter 2022, the result reflects an "exceptional" gas marketing and trading result, a lower level of refinery turnaround activity and a "very strong" oil trading result, the company said.
“This has been a quarter of strong performance and strategic delivery as we continue to focus on safe and reliable operations,” bp’s CEO Bernard Looney said. “Momentum continues to build across our integrated energy company strategy, with the start-up of [floating oil production platform] Mad Dog Phase 2, our agreement to acquire TravelCenters of America and progress towards hydrogen and [carbon, capture and storage] projects in the U.K. And importantly we continue to deliver for shareholders, through disciplined investment, lowering net debt and growing distributions.”
bp listed a total of 20,700 retail sites in first-quarter 2023, and 2,450 strategic convenience sites, which it defines as retail sites that sell bp-branded vehicle energy including bp, Aral, Arco, Amoco, Thorntons and bp pulse, and carry one of its strategic convenience brands. As of year-end 2022, Chicago-based bp had 1,224 company-owned and -operated c-store sites in the United States.
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