More Than 300 New England Stations Are Without Fuel

LONDONBERRY, N.H. and WORCESTER, Mass. -- More than 100 BP stations in Massachusetts and New Hampshire are currently without fuel and may not receive any fuel shipment for weeks, according to media reports.

The problem stems from Getty Petroleum Marketing Inc.'s (GPMI) December Chapter 11 bankruptcy declaration and its supplier Green Valley Oil going out of business, according to multiple sources.

In addition to the 106 BP stations that have no gasoline to sell to customers, another roughly 200 gas stations are affected in Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Connecticut, WBZ.com reported. Jim Massahos, owner of a BP station in Salem, Mass., told the TV station that he has been out of gas for three days and expects the outage to reach 30 days before he sees another fuel shipment.

Antoine "Tony" Nassour, owner of a BP gas station in Southbridge, Mass., said he's been out of gas for eight days already.

"We lost a lot of customers. We lost a lot of business," he told the Worcester Telegram & Gazette. "We lost everything. We don't know what's going to happen." According to WBZ.com, a new, unnamed supplier will replace Green Valley Oil, but won't begin making deliveries until May 1.

All of the BP gas stations affected are owned by Getty Realty Corp. GPMI leased 797 stores from Getty Realty under a master lease and then subsequently sub-leased those sites to independent operators.

As CSNews Online previously reported, Getty Realty has begun the process of repositioning 160 of the GPMI properties, with a goal of selling 75 percent of them by the end of 2013.

However, many convenience store and gas station owners who operate Getty-owned locations have had many questions in the meantime.

Getty Realty and GPMI have worked to alleviate the issues between them. On April 2, Judge Shelley Chapman of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York reportedly ordered GPMI to pay $18.9 million in fixed rent for the months of December 2011 to February 2012, as well as pay an undisclosed fixed rent for the month of March 2012. Chapman further required GPMI to surrender all of its locations to Getty Realty.

CSNews Online attempted to contact both GPMI and Getty Realty, but phone and e-mail messages were not returned.

BP issued the following statement at 4:55 p.m. Eastern time on April 12: ”BP has taken action today to address supply disruptions faced by a number of independent gas station operators in the greater Boston area.

BP has informed regional distributor Green Valley Oil that it will terminate its contract with Green Valley effective Friday, April 13th.

BP supply and logistics staff are working around the clock to identify new distributors and make the necessary changes to arrange for fuel deliveries to the 218 BP-branded sites supplied by Green Valley Oil. We hope to have this process completed by the end of the month.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause motorists during this transition period and sincerely hope consumers will continue to support the local gas station operators in their community who market BP-branded fuels.”

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