April 2, 2009 – The company that started what is likely the first gas station on St. Thomas introduced its newest product – Texaco with Techron –Thursday morning at a press gathering at the Windward Passage Holiday Inn.
Texaco's slogan has long been "You can trust your car to the man who wears the star," the company's logo, and that's especially so now with the new fuel additive, Chevron Texaco officials said.
Ryan Oettinger, Caribbean area sales manager, said the Techron additive would be particularly beneficial on St. Thomas, "with the hilly terrain."
Oettinger explained the additive "allows consumers to help clean up and protect vital engine parts, such as intake valves and fuel injectors." He said, "Techron does an unsurpassed job in cleaning the engine's intake system. Keeping your engine clean, translates to better performance, and vehicles may consume less gasoline."
To illustrate, Oettinger showed a slide of two intake valves, one from an engine in which Techron had been used and one from an engine that had run on lower quality gasoline. The one from the Techron engine was clean, while the other was not.
"It's a dramatic change," he said.
Chevron gasolines with Techron were the first in the U.S. and Canada to be designated as meeting performance criteria set by automakers BMW, General Motors, Honda and Toyota for Top Tier Detergent gasoline, Oettinger said. Top Tier establishes criteria for detergency levels in gasoline significantly higher than those currently set by the Environmental Protection Agency.
Stopping short of saying the additive would significantly improve mileage, Oettinger said the additive "simply produces a better performance, while minimizing emissions."
And, there is no price increase for regular or premium fuel with the additive, Oettinger said.
He explained that the Techron is added to Texaco fuel after it leaves the Hovensa depot on St. Croix. He introduced dispatcher Matthew Richards, a man who has taken care of Texaco on St. Thomas for the last 40 years. "He is the one who supervises that," Oettinger said.
Local Texaco official Carrol Theodore said the company first began selling fuel on the island one year after the U.S. bought the Virgin Islands from Denmark in 1917. However, she said since that was way before her time she didn't know the location of the first station nor whether any other fuel companies operated at that time.
She did say Texaco is an attentive corporate citizen.
"We supply all the gas to Dial-A-Ride," she said.
The company also supplies equipment for Lockhart Elementary School.
Oettinger said the executives celebrated Thursday's launch of the produce with radio interviews and promotions at each of the island's eight stations, distributing T-shirts, hats and sales pitches.
Though Thursday is the official launch of the product, Oettinger said it has been dispensed for a couple weeks, but it's too soon to have any official customer response. In the U.S.V.I., Texaco is sold only on St. Thomas.
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