The provider of petroleum products last month launched supply chain app Distributor Online, which now links Equilon Lubricants with about 30 oil and gas distributors but has the potential to expand to hundreds more. Equilon Lubricants is a unit of the joint venture between Texaco and Shell known as Equilon Enterprises, which refines and markets petroleum products in 32 Midwestern and Western states. Its 1,100 distributors serve customers ranging from small gasoline stations to huge industrial factories. Larry Koenig, director of e-business for Equilon Lubricants, said the Web app helps distributors solve a problem that many of them are not technologically sophisticated enough to solve on their own.
Distributors can start small and move up as they become more comfortable with the technology.
The app lets Equilon continue its long-standing business relationship with its distributors, Koenig said. Instead, he noted, Distributor Online gives distributors the flexibility to continue doing business the way they see fit, but share a consistent technological foundation with fellow distributors as well as Equilon. That makes sense, said AMR Research analyst Leif Eriksen. The segment is essentially run by smaller operations, and this will let Equilon manage the process and enable the distributors to retain some of their own brand equity. That feature, due to be rolled out later in the spring, would let fuel tanker drivers enter delivery data onsite and have the billing data automatically mesh with customers' existing financial systems.