Aral

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Aral AG
legal form Corporation
founding 1898
Seat Bochum , Germany
management Patrick Wendeler,
CEO
Number of employees 6023
sales over 500 million euros
Branch mineral oil
Website www.aral.de

Aral gas station
Petrol pump from 1958, exhibited in the tractorium in Drasenhofen in Lower Austria

The Aral AG is a company of BP -Konzerns in Germany.

history

In 1881 a coking plant was built in Bulmke-Hüllen (today Gelsenkirchen ) , which paid attention to the by-product raw gas . Instead of viewing it as waste, it was processed into benzene, among other things . On November 28, 1898, 13 mining companies founded the West German Benzene Sales Association in Bochum . The business purpose was the sale of benzene. In 1906 the association merged with the East German Benzene Sales Association to form the German Benzene Association. This received a logo of crossed mallets and iron as a mining symbol in connection with the letters DBV.

After various restructurings, the Benzol Association was founded as a GmbH (BV or B.-V. for short) in 1918 . At that time, the Benzol Association mainly supplied benzene to paint factories.

To open up further distribution channels, the benzene-association developed in 1924 a gasoline benzene mixture with a mixing ratio "of six parts gasoline and four parts of benzene" than petrol , which the employees there chemist Walter Ostwald , son of Nobel laureate Wilhelm Ostwald , in Gave a name as part of a competition: As benzene belongs to the chemical group of AR omats and gasoline belongs to the AL iphates , Ostwald named the new fuel BV-Aral . Due to the steadily growing number of motor vehicles in the 1920s, the Benzol Association became one of the largest fuel sales organizations in Germany, the largest without foreign participation.

In addition to the inclusion of lubricants in the range, the Aral fuels and Deron petrol were colored blue in the corporate color from 1930 for reasons of brand protection . After the introduction of compulsory alcohol admixture at the beginning of the 1930s, the Benzol Association advertised its “German fuel”. The DAPG's answer to this was on a leaflet: “German fuels? ... Aral contains: 45% German benzene and German alcohol as well as 55% gasoline of foreign origin. Esso contains: 45% German benzene and German alcohol and 55% petrol of foreign origin. Which fuel is now national? ".

Aral tap from 1930
Remains of a gas station in Buchenbach 2007

In 1935, the Benzol Association in Germany was the largest mineral oil distribution company of the so-called Big Five with a sales quota of 26.2 percent and in third place with 7740 dispensers (13.8 percent). In the same year, the Benzol Association took over the taps of the DEROP (German Sales Company for Russian Oil Products A.-G.), which had previously supplied it with Russian petrol. This remained the dealer business. From 1936, the Benzol Association sold Leuna gasoline and synthetic gasoline based on hard coal from the Gelsenkirchen-Scholven hydrogenation plant (now BP Gelsenkirchen ) under the name Bevaulin , later under Aralin . In addition, the Benzol Association has a monopoly on the sale of benzene.

In the years of the Second World War , the state centralization of fuel sales took place within the framework of the National Socialist war economy on the basis of the fixed quotas . Instead of branded gasoline, only standard fuels were sold. The petrol stations were managed by the Central Office for Mineral Oil . According to his car map from 1939, the distribution area of ​​the Benzolverband was the entire German Reich including Austria and the Reich Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia .

post war period

At the end of the Second World War, the Benzol Association in Soviet-occupied Austria passed as German property to the Soviet Mineral Oil Administration (SMV) and from there in 1955/1956 to the Austrian Mineral Oil Administration (today OMV AG ).

In the Trizone , the Benzol Association planned in 1947/1948 to bring a higher quality fuel (Bibo mixture) onto the market than the competitors with 80 octane by increasing the benzene content , but this was prevented in the course of the forced exploitation. After the currency reform in June 1948 , a long-lasting upswing ( economic miracle ) began.

In 1949 the Benzol Association put the first electrically operated fuel dispenser into operation in Germany. In 1951, like all its competitors, the company was able to take over fuel sales on its own again with the abolition of compulsory fuel management from the central office for mineral oil. The unbundling and reorganization of German industry, especially the West German coal and steel industry , led in 1952 to the renaming of the Benzol Association into a stock corporation called BV-Aral AG . For the first time, the product name Aral appeared in the company name. BV-Aral subsequently advertised that its product was “lead-free” (because of the benzene content).

In 1956, the Wintershall drilling company became co-owner (shareholder) of BV-Aral AG, bringing in its gas station organization NITAG and its shares in Gasolin . At the same time, DEA became a shareholder in BV-Aral, bringing in its petrol stations and the shares in Gasolin. In the same year was NITAG with its 650 petrol stations on gasoline for German gasoline-Nitag AG merged .

After taking over 50 percent of Rheinpreußen AG für Bergbau und Chemie in 1959, DEA left as a shareholder in 1960. She took her own chain of gas stations with her. The shares in Gasolin remained in BV-Aral, for which DEA ​​was compensated. By further increasing the proportion of benzene, BV-Aral brought an even more knock-resistant fuel with 100 RON under the name Aral .

Brand name Aral

Font Aral V2 used in the corporate design

In 1961, the 100 percent member companies in the BV-Aral association decided to market their various products (fuels and lubricants) under the common brand name Aral in future. This did not apply to the gasoline only 91 percent of which is in BV-Aral. The company thus became a pure mineral oil company in 1962, as a result of which it was renamed Aral AG . It was from the previous Aralin the Aral petrol and Aral was in Aral Super renamed. From 1963, Aral Super had to be leaded for the first time to prevent knocking.

In 1964, Aral AG generated sales of DM 3.4 billion. From 1967, Mobil Oil (today ExxonMobil ), Veba Oel and Gelsenberg each took over 28 percent of Aral's share capital. Wintershall still held 15 percent, while the West German benzene producers only had one percent.

In 1969 Aral opened its first self-service petrol station. Two years later, in 1971, Gasolin was merged with Aral. The red and white Gasolin brand was abandoned and the petrol stations were changed to the blue and white Aral design by 1972.

During the Middle East conflict by the OPEC caused oil price crisis caused the Aral in 1973 to look for alternative energy sources to oil. Despite new competitors, Aral remained the market leader in Germany in the 1970s and 1980s.

Gasoline filling station in Pasewalk, 2007 (noteworthy is the white painted Aralpylon with the gasoline symbol stuck on)

In 1980, 5875 Aral petrol stations were operated in West Germany (market share 22.7 percent), 3010 of which were self-service only . With the reunification , Aral AG opened the first petrol stations in the new federal states in 1990 and expanded to Eastern Europe. In the period that followed, some petrol stations in eastern Germany were flagged from Aral to the Gasolin brand .

The first Aral natural gas filling station was opened in 1997 and the first hydrogen filling station was opened at Munich Airport in 1999 .

On January 1, 2000, VEBA Oel AG - at that time 56 percent shareholder of Aral AG - took over another 43 percent of Aral shares from long-term co-shareholders Mobil Oil (28 percent) and Wintershall (15 percent). Aral thus became the primary sales platform of the Veba Oel Group. The new company name was Aral Aktiengesellschaft & Co. KG . This ended the collaboration between the three companies that had existed since 1967.

In 2002, Veba Oel and Aral Aktiengesellschaft & Co. KG were sold to Deutsche BP AG by E.ON (which a.o. emerged from Veba) after the approval of the Federal Cartel Office . In the following year, BP decided to run the gas station business in Germany under the Aral brand . Around 650 BP stations were converted to Aral. Nevertheless, six BP filling stations remained to secure the trademark rights. These filling stations were located in Dortmund (now operated as an Aral filling station), Munich (now closed), Berlin (now also closed), Frankfurt am Main (now flagged to Aral) and Schwarmstedt (now also flagged to Aral). In total, Aral and BP had around 2500 filling stations across Germany. Outside of Germany and Luxembourg, the Aral filling stations were largely changed to BP filling stations from around 2003, for example in Austria and Poland. The filling station network in Slovakia was sold to OMV and flagged accordingly. In the Czech Republic, the Aral filling station network continued until around the end of 2005, when BP, like the Slovakian filling stations, sold it to the Austrian company OMV and reflagged it.

In 2004 two new fuels were brought onto the market with ultimate 100 as the new super petrol with 100 RON (instead of super plus) and with ultimate Diesel . In the same year, the world's first public hydrogen road filling station was opened in Berlin. In 2005 Aral became the official advertising and fuel partner of the DTM with its ultimate brands .

At the same time as Walter Ostwald was developing the new fuel, the yellow and black logo in the form of a diamond was introduced. This is considered to be the noblest of the carbon allotropes and therefore corresponds to the area of ​​responsibility of the Benzol Association. In 1927 the logo was changed from black and yellow to blue and white while retaining the basic concept and using the Bochum city ​​colors. In the course of the renaming of the Benzol Association to BV Aral AG in 1952, the Aral logo, which is still used today in its basic form, was created in a dark blue color, which until 1971 still had the old logo as a small addition on the upper left. In 1971, after the incorporation of Gasolin, the logo was changed to a new one in light blue while retaining the basic shape. The historical reference to the benzene association has been deleted. As a result of this merger of Veba Oel AG and Aral AG to form Aral Aktiengesellschaft & Co. KG in 2000, a darker Aral blue was used as the basic tone of the logo. Since 2006, the Aral brand has had a new three-dimensional logo.

  • Logo from 1917

  • Logo from 1927

  • Logo from 1952

  • Logo from 1971

  • Logo from 2000

Products

BV Oel (from 1927)

Like all competitors, Aral offers various mineral oil products:

In addition to classic petrol, diesel fuels and lubricants, there are now natural gas, the liquefied gases propane and butane , liquid and gaseous hydrogen and heating oil .

Many Aral petrol stations also have a wider range of goods, often also a petit bistro . Washing programs with interior and exterior cleaning are offered for vehicle cleaning.

In a consumer study on the quality of offer and service in the shops of nationwide petrol station chains from July 2013, which was carried out by the German Society for Consumer Studies (DtGV) in cooperation with N24 , Aral landed in the overall ranking after Q1 and OIL! on the third place.

literature

  • Rainer Karlsch, Raymond G. Stokes: Factor Oil. The mineral oil industry in Germany 1859–1974 . Verlag CH Beck, Munich, 2003. ISBN 3-406-50276-8
  • Joachim Kleinmanns: Great, full! A brief cultural history of the gas station . Jonas Verlag, Marburg, 2002. ISBN 3-89445-297-8

Web links

Commons : Aral  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Stefan Brok hands over to Patrick Wendeler
  2. ^ ADAC Motorwelt, Munich, March 1952. The article refers to a conference of the Benzol Association and the speech of its director Gerhard Eger
  3. ↑ http://hometown.aol.de/_ht_a/ostwaldenergie/homepage/seiten/s24.htm Walter Ostwald (1886–1958) ( Memento from March 21, 2005 in the Internet Archive )
  4. ↑ 1924 - The Aral brand is born ( Memento from August 27, 2006 in the Internet Archive )
  5. ↑ Joachim Kleinmanns: Super, full! A brief cultural history of the gas station . Jonas Verlag, Marburg, 2002. P. 24 f.
  6. ↑ Joachim Kleinmanns: Super, full! A brief cultural history of the gas station . Jonas Verlag, Marburg, 2002. p. 46. (quoted from Walter Ade: The gas station problem in Germany . Hamburg, 1936.)
  7. ↑ Joachim Kleinmanns: Super, full! A brief cultural history of the gas station . Jonas Verlag, Marburg, 2002. p. 26.
  8. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of July 24, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  9. ^ Rainer Karlsch , Raymond G. Stokes: Factor oil. The mineral oil industry in Germany 1859–1974 . Verlag CH Beck, Munich, 2003. p. 272.
  10. ↑ Aral's own company brochure on fuel research. P. 8
  11. ^ Aral history in: Aral AG website
  12. ↑ DtGV and N24 consumer study on the quality of petrol station shops , accessed on July 22, 2013