The stations will go from a COCO (company owned, company operated) to a CODO (company owned, dealer operated) system, which means Rompetrol will remain the owner of the stations but the dealers will be the ones to run them.
This is the strategy applied by most Rompetrol rivals and is a business model oil companies like because it helps them cut costs. On the other hand, a dealer is like an entrepreneur and it is in their best interest to make sure the business grows. In some cases, the oil company’s employees in gas stations become dealers.
Market leader OMV Petrom made the switch in late 2007, when it announced it had completed the transfer of the 500 gas stations it had back then to 300 dealers, a process that had taken almost three years.
The local subsidiary of Hungary’s MOL, the fourth largest in the industry, uses the same model.
Rompetrol officials did not comment on the information by press time.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)