Fuel retailer Parkland Corp. has put 157 of its gas and convenience store locations up for sale across six provinces in Canada, reported the Financial Post.
The locations available are primarily in Qubec and Ontario, and include stores under the Chevron, Ultramar, Pioneer and FasGas brands as well as the On the Run convenience store banner. The rest are in Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba and Saskatchewan.
“As we continue to grow, we have identified sites that no longer fit our long-term strategic objectives in their current format,” said Francis Lapointe, Parkland’s vice-president of Canadian retail operations in a statement. “While high-quality, these locations would be better suited under someone else’s ownership.”
The company said the retail and fuel locations will be packaged with long-term Parkland fuel supply agreements, which should make them attractive to “experienced, entrepreneurial operators.”
Parkland has 4,000 retail and fuel locations in Canada, the United States and the Caribbean, and also operates the Burnaby, B.C., refinery, which supplies approximately a quarter of the gasoline and diesel consumed in the western province.
Other fuel retailers also sold off properties this year—Shell announced this month that it would sell 1,000 stores over the next two years, and in January Sunoco agreed to sell 204 c-stores to 7-Eleven for $1 billion.
In the case of Shell, the company’s decision to sell locations is part of a plan to upgrade its retail network with low-carbon fuels and electric vehicle (EV) charging in markets in markets where it’s seeing demand, including China and Europe. Shell stated it aims to increase the number of public charge points that it operates from 54,000 today to around 200,000 by 2030.
Last year, Parkland Corporation announced that it secured up to CA$210 million of financing expand its EV charging network, reported NACS Daily. Parkland’s existing EV charging network is primarily located in British Columbia (BC), which has the highest proportion of EV drivers in North America.