Gulf has experienced a significant revival since 1990, emerging as a flexible network of allied business interests based on partnerships, franchises and agencies.

The rights to the brand in the United States are owned by Gulf Oil Limited Partnership (GOLC), which operates over 2,100 service stations and several petroleum terminals; it is headquartered in Wellesley, Massachusetts.

The company's focus is primarily in the provision of downstream products and services to a mass market through joint ventures, strategic alliances, licensing agreements, and distribution arrangement.

[12] Gulf promoted the concept of branded product sales by selling fuel in containers and from pumps marked with a distinctive orange disc logo.

Gulf also established the model for the integrated, international "oil major", which refers to one of a group of very large companies that assumed influential and sensitive positions in the countries in which they operated.

In 1924, it acquired the Venezuelan-American Creole Syndicate's leases in the strip of shallow water 1.5 kilometers (0.93 mi) wide along the Lake Maracaibo east shore.

The company played a major role in the early development of oil production in Kuwait, and through the 1950s and '60s apparently enjoyed a "special relationship" with the Kuwaiti government.

It was the cheap oil and fuel being shipped from Kuwait that formed the economic basis for Gulf's diverse petroleum sector operations in Europe, the Mediterranean, Africa, and the Indian subcontinent.

Gulf was at the forefront of various projects in the late 1960s intended to adjust the world oil industry to developments of the time including closure of the Suez Canal after the 1967 war.

In particular, Gulf undertook the construction of deep-water terminals at Bantry Bay in Ireland and Okinawa in Japan capable of handling Ultra Large Crude Carrier (ULCC) vessels serving the European and Asian markets respectively.

[25] Gulf also participated in a partnership with other majors, including Texaco, to build the Pembroke Catalytic Cracker refinery at Milford Haven and the associated Mainline Pipelines fuel distribution network.

The eventual reopening of the Suez Canal and upgrading of the older European oil terminals (Europoort and Marchwood) meant that the financial return from these projects was not all that had been hoped for.

In 1975, several senior Gulf executives, including chairman Bob Dorsey, were implicated in the making of illegal "political contributions" and were forced to step down from their positions.

The Big Jobber strategy recognized that the day of the integrated, multi-national oil major might be over, since it involved concentrating on those parts of the supply chain where Gulf had a competitive advantage.

Wearing Gulf Oil company colors and logos, the Grumman G-22 "Gulfhawk II", registered NR1050, was delivered in December 1936, and in 1938 Maj. Williams flew it on a tour of Europe.

The logo even appeared on the front cross-shaped desk of every special event and coverage broadcast by the network and it was notably used by Chet Huntley and David Brinkley or the other correspondents since the 1964 Republican National Convention.

The company used the connection to its advantage by offering giveaway or promotional items at its stations, including sticker sheets of space mission logos, a paper punch-out lunar module model kit, and a book titled "We Came in Peace," containing pictures of the Apollo 11 Moon landing.

In the ten days allowed to prepare the SEC filing, Mesa and its investor partners accelerated buying to 11 percent of the company's stock, larger than the founding Mellon family's share, by October 1983.

Gulf responded to Mesa's interest by calling a shareholders' meeting for late November 1983 and subsequently engaged in a proxy war on changing the corporation's by-laws to minimize arbitrage.

This is a standard defensive tactic calculated to boost the current share price,[citation needed] although possibly at the expense of long-term strategic advantage.

James Lee, Gulf's CEO and Chairman, even claimed during the November 1983 shareholders meeting to address the Mesa ownership that Pickens' royalty trust idea was nothing more than a "get-rich-quick scheme" that would undermine the corporation's profit potential in the coming decades.

Gulf, therefore, sought to resist Pickens by various means, including refiling as a Delaware corporation, voiding the ability of shareholders to cumulatively vote (fearing that Pickens would use his shares to gain control of the board) and listening to offers from Ashland Oil (which would double Gulf's price from its pre-Mesa level), General Electric (two years before it took over the media company NBC/RCA) and finally Chevron to act as its white knight in 1984.

Pickens has claimed that after realizing a more than doubling of stock appreciation for Gulf shareholders (as well as its management that fought him at every turn), Mesa's shares were the last to be paid out by Chevron.

However, Pickens and Lee (Gulf's CEO) were summoned to testify before the Senate months before the merger was hammered out and the matter was referred to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

The merger sent even deeper shock waves through the long-time exclusive "Seven Sisters" club of major integrated oil companies that defined themselves as elevated from the "non-major independents".

Chevron, to settle with the government antitrust requirements, sold some Gulf stations and a refinery in the eastern United States to British Petroleum (BP) and Cumberland Farms in 1985 as well as some of the international operations.

GOI is also involved in franchising the Gulf brand to operators in the petroleum and automotive sectors; Gulf-branded filling stations can be found in several countries including the UK, Belgium, Germany, Ireland, Slovakia, Czechia, the Netherlands, Jordan, Finland, Armenia and Turkey.

[51] However, attempts to sell Gulf Oil (Great Britain) to KPC failed because of irrevocable GOC guarantees given earlier in regard to bonds issued to finance the construction of refinery facilities in the UK.

GOCL have emerged as one of leading lubricants brands in India and run many marketing sponsorships targeted at the ever-growing youth sector in the country.

Starting in 2001, a new Gulf network of independent stations began appearing across the UK, many of which offered leaded "four-star" petrol, for which Bayford had a special dispensation to sell.