Terpel was founded in 1968 to help ease the shortage of gasoline in Santander.

The Terpel Bucaramanga Company was formed with 20 service stations, with plans to expand to a national scale in the future with the creation of six additional "Terpeles" in different regions of the country.

Terpel started trading on the Colombia Stock Exchange on 19 August 2014.

Due to the high trade volume of the stock, the company was included in the COLCAP, which is composed of the exchange's 20 most actively-traded companies, in August 2015.

Terpel has acquired several companies outside of Colombia, most recently 200 gas stations in Chile.