The eastern states of the newly unified Germany are the kind of place that sets any gasoline marketer's pulse racing.
Gasoline service stations are a rarity. For years East Germans have been forced to line up for hours to fill up their very basic automobiles, built locally or in other parts of eastern Europe, at a selection of rundown outlets that would have looked old fashioned in the 1950s.
There are 3,000 passenger vehicles for each service station in the East. That's twice as many vehicles per station as in the neighboring West, which has one of the most competitive marketing networks in Europe.
A 1990S STYLE FILLUP
With market potential like that, big multinational groups and local brands such as Aral and DEA, which dominate the West German market, are starting to introduce East Germans to the delights of a fillup 1990s style. The goal is to ensure that the big companies maintain the same market share in unified Germany as they have in the western part of the country.
About 2,000-2,500 new service stations will be required in the East at a cost of 6 billion deutschemarks ($4 billion). A spinoff from this investment will be creation of 25,000 much needed jobs.
The search is on for service station sites. And companies are finding this a demanding task because the unification process has sparked many disputes over land ownership.
The first western brands are appearing over revamped stations in the East, but Deutsche BP has set the pace by opening the first greenfield site station built to West European standards.
The station, only the third retail outlet in Dresden, a city of 600,000 people, is just off the autobahn to the airport and almost next door to a large Soviet military base. BP last January reached an agreement with Minol, the former East German state marketing company, then embarked on a fast track construction project to build Europe's largest service station.
The site has proved to be quite an eye opener for motorists. The huge forecourt can fuel 24 cars and two trucks at the same time. There are a total of 80 nozzles to dispense seven grades of fuel.
In addition to three unleaded grades, leaded, and diesel dispensed by BP stations in West Germany, the Dresden station has to sell two grades of gasoline/lube mixture required by Trabant cars manufactured in East Germany. New Trabants are being fitted with Volkswagen engines, so pumps with this mixture will have a limited lifespan.
BP INNOVATIONS
Deutsche BP's 6 million deutschemark ($4 million) investment also has another innovation for East German stations: a convenience store, a car wash, and a service bay. Throughput is expected to be more than 20 million I./year, twice as much as BP's best roadside outlets in the rest of Germany.
The station also is fitted with a 100 m long lane to accommodate lines of cars that were expected despite huge pump capacity on the forecourt. In the first week this lane proved necessary. Waits of 40 min for fuel were common.
That would rapidly exhaust the patience of the average European or American driver, but East Germans, accustomed to hours in the forecourt lines, rate it an improvement.
Copyright 1990 Oil & Gas Journal. All Rights Reserved.