ARCO
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- For the diploma for church organists, see Royal College of Organists.
- For the chamber orchestra, see ARCO Chamber Orchestra.
ARCO (an acronym for Atlantic Richfield Company) is an American oil company that was formed by the merger of East Coast-based Atlantic Refining and California-based Richfield Petroleum in 1966. The Atlantic Petroleum Storage Company's heritage dates to 1866; it became part of the Standard Oil trust in 1874, but achieved independence again when Standard Oil was broken up in 1911. ARCO was a principal in the discovery of Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, North America's largest oil field, in 1968. The company acquired Sinclair Oil in 1969.
ARCO once had a presence in the southeastern U.S. - a stretch of State Highway 225 east of Loop 610 in Houston, TX had an oil tank farm once painted with the ARCO logo. Lyondell-Citgo would rebrand the oil tanks in the 1980s. Today, ARCO operates about 1500 stations in 6 US Western States: California, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Utah, and Arizona.[1]
ARCO bought Anaconda Copper Mining Company's Montana holdings in 1977, including the Berkeley Pit and the Anaconda, Montana Smelter. However, the purchase turned out to be a regrettable decision for ARCO. Lack of experience with hard-rock mining, and a sudden drop in the price of copper to below seventy cents a pound, the lowest in years, caused ARCO to suspend all operations in Butte. By 1983, only six years after acquiring rights to the "Richest Hill on Earth," the Berkeley Pit was completely idle. Ultimately however, the decision to sell this property was even more regrettable because by 2006 the price of copper had risen to over $4 per pound making it one of the most lucrative-ever investments and cash cow in the portfolio of subsequent purchaser, billionaire industrialist Dennis Washington.
ARCO, officially BP West Coast Products LLC, is now a subsidiary of BP.
The Atlantic brand was spun off for ARCO's East Coast stations, and was acquired by Sunoco. The ARCO brand is now used on the West Coast. ARCO specializes in discount gas by removing many frills, among them forcing prepayment for fuel (except in Oregon, where customers are prohibited by state law from pumping their own gas), not accepting credit cards, and charging for use of debit cards. In most locations, it is co-branded with ampm convenience stores, also a division of BP West Coast (ARCO introduced the ampm concept in 1979).
Over the course of 2004 and 2005, ARCO signs have been replaced. New signs still have the Arco spark, but BP's Helios (BP's new white, yellow, and green mark named after the Greek sun god which replaced the old British Petroleum shield mark)[2][3] is also located on the sign. A new tagline "ARCO - part of BP" has also appeared on some signs and advertisements. Some groups have speculated that this is the first step in a process that will see BP slowly rebrand the familiar ARCO logo with the BP Helios. ARCO is known for sponsoring the ARCO Arena in Sacramento, California (license fee is $750,000/year with the license expiring in 2007).[4]
In March, 1997, ARCO also leased almost all the gas stations of the (now) Santa Fe Springs, CA based independent Thrifty Oil[5] group of 250 stations found throughout California[6] after a damaging price war which the independent Thrifty was unable to win.[7]
ARCO's patented gasoline contains the cleaning additive, CleanTech.[8]
ARCO's pre-paid gift card is ARCO PumpPass. Certain BP owned and operated ARCO stations accept both the PumpPass card and the BP Cash! Card used at BP and Amoco stations.
As of October 2006, the BP Credit Card, issued by Citibank, is now issued by JPMorgan Chase. It has been rumored that ARCO may accept this card in the future.
