Oil giant Exxon Mobil Corp. plans to sell its company-owned gas stations, saying they aren’t profitable enough even with gasoline selling at $4 per gallon.
The 2,220 stations make up about 1/5 of the Exxon and Mobil stations in the United States. The nation’s largest oil company, which earned nearly $41 billion last year, says it will sell more than 2,000 stations over the next few years.

“As the highly competitive fuels marketing business in the U.S. continues to evolve, we believe this transition is the best way for ExxonMobil to compete and grow in the future,” said Ben Soraci, U.S. director of retail sales for ExxonMobil.

Sorry Ben, I don’t buy it. Big Oil has been making record profits, have have more money floating around than they know what to do with. I realize that the retail end is different from the “manufacturing” component, but gas stations as a loosing proposition? I doubt it.

To me, this is good news. I think the big oil boys see something coming they don’t like, and want to get rid of their stations before a “certain something” is mandated by the Feds, or virtually “demanded” by market forces. I hope this “certain something” is something like: compressed air refill stations, hydrogen refill stations, and or biofuel pumps. Wouldn’t that be fantastic?