Aral AG

The value of the Aral brand name, its very high brand recognition of over 90%, and its excellent market position were decisive in the choice of Aral as the future brand name of the German service station business. The benzene marketing association is transformed into Benzol-Verband (B.V.) and has 75 members. The Aral network reaches its peak with 11,000 gas stations; the company introduces convenience products to its on-site stores. Aral begins to expand its network of gas stations to Eastern Europe. Aral AG, under the parentage of Deutsche BP AG, is Germany's largest operator of gas stations. With a network of roughly 2,500 gas stations in Germany, the company holds a market share of about 24 percent. Through sales at its convenience stores, Aral sees itself as Germany's fourth largest fast food chain and ranks 16th among the country's retailers. The Aral retail brand is present beyond Germany's borders in Luxembourg and the Czech Republic. In 2002 Aral became a wholly owned subsidiary of Deutsche BP AG, the German subsidiary of the British mineral oil group BP plc. The rise of Aral parallels that of the automobile in Germany in the first half of the 20th century. However, its history may be traced as far back as 1898, when automobiles were rare and 13 coal mines in the western German Ruhr region founded a marketing association for benzene--a by-product of producing coke from coal. The association, named Westdeutsche Benzol-Verkaufsvereinigung and headquartered in Bochum, sold benzene mainly to chemical and paint producers, as well as manufacturers of fuel for lighting fixtures. The 13 members companies agreed on annual production quotas and sold their product exclusively through the marketing association. After several reorganizations, the association was renamed Benzol-Verband (B.V.) in 1918. By that time, 75 benzene factories had joined the organization. After World War I, Germany, like many countries, saw the rapid rise of the motor car. The number of motor vehicles in the country climbed from roughly 21,000 in 1906 to 300,000 in 1924. B.V. had tried marketing benzene as a substitute for imported gasoline before the war. Although the public endorsement of B.V.'s benzene fuel by the brother of the German Emperor and automobile-enthusiast Prince Heinrich von Hohenzollern helped garner attention, the endeavor failed. Motors at the time were simply not designed to smoothly absorb benzene's high-energy content. Meanwhile, chemist Walter Oswald was conducting experiments in B.V.'s laboratories, trying to formulate a new kind of gasoline that contained benzene. In 1924 he came up with a mixture of gasoline and benzene which he named Aral. The name combined the first two letters of the two groups of chemicals to which the ingredients belonged; Benzene was an "aromatic" chemical and gasoline was "aliphatic." After the creation of Aral fuel, B.V. focused on expanding its distribution network and product line. In the second half of the 1920s the company began to establish gas stations. At first attached to drugstores, restaurants or hotels, the facilities later became independent service stations. Within ten years the number of B.V. gas stations had risen sharply. There were about 200 gas stations in Germany in 1926; by 1937 the number of B.V. gas stations had reached 9,000. During this time, the company added motor oil and diesel fuel to its product line. Beginning in 1935, B.V. customers were also able to buy petroleum. In the late 1930s, after Adolf Hitler's National Socialist Party had achieved political power in Germany, the country began striving for economic self-sufficiency. One of the government's goals was to replace imported oil with an alternative fuel derived from domestic coal. In 1937, several B.V. members founded another association under the company's organizational umbrella, this one aimed at developing and selling coal-based gasoline. During World War II Germany's fuel market was centrally administered by