The Oil & Gas Industry is a complex industry, where both services and products are being traded and global processes are taking place along each division of operations (upstream, midstream, downstream). More specifically, the Retail Fuel Market in Greece may be regarded as a perfectly competitive market, since there are no participants significant enough to concentrate the market power and set the prices of a – generally homogeneous – commodity such as fuel. Another aspect of the Fuel Market is the fact that most consumers are fairly mobile at the time of purchase.
The aforementioned attributes of the Retail Fuel Industry, along with the seemingly difficulty to differentiate the product, create a significant pressure to the companies operating in the Oil & Gas Industry to sell at lower mark-up and gain more volume. Therefore, the retailers are in a constant quest of pricing strategies as well as oligopolistic models to implement in order to maximize their profits, whilst utilizing the consumers’ surplus.
Additionally, the Oil & Gas companies, in alliance with their marketing concept, will try to differentiate their products by highlighting performance characteristics and additives, even though it does not amount to a significant result; the products and services are very similar amongst the companies of the industry. With such a large range of products and customers, it is evident that there is no single marketing strategy used by oil companies. However, it is clear that the marketing concept that needs to be developed by an oil company should be integrated around a fundamental and clear “Brand Portfolio Strategy”.
