Growmark and eight of its member cooperatives acquired the business and inventory of Tri-County Petroleum, including its lubricants and fuels business in six southern Illinois towns. Terms of the March 31 transaction were not disclosed.
We have a lubricant blending operation in Council Bluffs, Iowa, and our member system extends into southern Illinois, so this gives us another access point, a distribution location to be able to better service our southern region, which is basically the southern half of Illinois, Shelly Kruse, Growmarks vice president of Midwest retail and acquisitions, told Lube Report. The acquired lubricants business operates in the towns of Greenville, Hamel, Pierron, Red Bud, Vandalia and Wood River, servicing south-central Illinois and metropolitan St. Louis, Mo.
Growmark Lubricants of Bloomington, Ill., purchased Tri-Countys proprietary Extreme Lubricants brand and will service all of the lubricant accounts. The brand includes heavy- duty diesel and passenger car motor oils, hydraulic fluids, transmission fluids and greases. Tri-County also distributed Mobil and Schaeffer brand lubricants.
Were working to continue the Mobil distribution, Kruse said.
Bloomington, Ill.-based Growmark is a regional cooperative providing agriculture related products, services and grain marketing in the Midwest and in Ontario, Canada. Growmarks energy division revamped its lubricants business in 2006 by acquiring McCollister and Co., a lubricant blending facility in Council Bluffs, Iowa, along with the Archer and United lubricant brands. FS is another Growmark lubricant brand, and is also the cooperatives farm supplies brand name.
FS member cooperatives will service fuels accounts in 14 counties in Illinois where Tri-County did business. Tri-Countys focus was in agriculture, trucking, construction, excavation and industrial sectors.
Pierron, Ill.-based Tri-County Petroleum was established in 1978. It is not related to Pennsylvania-based Tri-County Petroleum, which distributes industrial and commercial lubricants in the mid-Atlantic region.