Coleman Oil: Keeping tanks full for 70 years

Bob Coleman Sr. set the stage for his family company to prosper in the 1970s by being an astute, early adopter of an innovation in fuel delivery.

Coleman Oil Co. was a Standard Oil distributor founded in Craigmont in 1953 when the company acquired one or two cardlock sites in Lewiston, the first in the region. The cardlocks created a more user-friendly way for owners of large vehicle fleets to buy gasoline and diesel.

Since that initial investment, Coleman Oil has expanded. Its network of cardlock fueling sites now numbers 91 in Idaho, Washington and Oregon. It has also established a fleet of 100 fuel delivery trucks and opened 12 convenience stores.

The legacy that Bob Coleman Sr. started has been continued by his son, Bob Coleman Jr., who is turning over the title of CEO of the company to his son, Ian Coleman, on Jan. 1. The elder Coleman will continue with the company, serving as chairperson of the board.

Bob Coleman Jr. and Ian Coleman are the Lewiston Tribune’s Business People of the Year for 2023. It is the first time that a father-son duo has received the honor. (See story at right.)

The cardlock locations remain a foundation of the business half a century after the eldest Coleman spotted their potential, the younger two Colemans said.

Customers can use the sites around the clock even when they are not staffed. At the sites, purchases are completed with cards, which, similar to credit cards, record information such as the time, date and dollar amount of transactions.

But they also document other information such as the vehicle that was fueled and the amount of fuel purchased. And they have other features. The cards, for example, can be set up with dollar or gallon limits, or restrictions for the times they can be used.

Municipalities, agricultural businesses, trucking companies and construction contractors are among those that fill their tanks at Coleman Oil’s cardlocks.

“It was a very attractive thing for people to make sure that the fuel was going where it needed to go, that their reporting for road taxes was correct and all of those sorts of things,” Bob Coleman Jr. said. “It was a quantum leap forward.”

Before the cardlocks, as many as 40 keys could be assigned to a single meter that could track just a couple of types of data, unless an employee was on hand, he said.

Providing cardlock sites is one of the ways that Coleman Oil gives its customers access to fuel in what may be one the most challenging regions for its industry in the nation.

Per-gallon fuel prices are consistently above national averages in Idaho and Washington because of the lack of infrastructure, said Ian Coleman.

A total of three pipelines serves the region, a fraction of what exists in any market to the east, he said.

Most of the fuel consumed in north central Idaho and southeastern Washington is trucked in from Spokane or Pasco.

“The West developed later than the East,” Ian Coleman said. “We do have refineries in Washington state, which brings it a little closer to home, but still getting crude over to those refineries and then distributing out from those refineries to the end users, there’s just fewer modalities.”

Washington State’s Climate Commitment Act pushes fuel prices even higher in the state of Washington, he said.

The act subsidizes alternative fuels and discourages use of fossil fuels with incentives and taxes, Ian Coleman said.

Coleman Oil has worked to mitigate those circumstances through a variety of strategies such as building a facility in 2009 near a Bellingham, Wash., refinery where it can load rail cars and ship them east.

“It’s like a pipeline on wheels because the pipelines just go south down to Portland, Ore., and terminate in Eugene, Ore.,” Bob Coleman said.

The concern of gas prices, he said, is universal, connected with the necessity and convenience of driving cars as well as the lack of control individuals have over the expense of fuel to operate them.

“My suspicion is that people even in Texas, who have some of the lowest prices, get asked that question if they’re in this business,” Ian Coleman said. “People hate gas prices, so I think it’s just a hot-button issue.”

Staying on top of the challenge of fuel prices and tackling other issues facing the industry are reasons Ian Coleman chose to join his family’s business. His decision followed a five-year stint in the Seattle area as an independent contractor doing financial analysis for small businesses.

Part of what Ian Coleman is managing is the increasing prevalence of alternative fuels.

At this time, a primary purpose of emerging fuels is to augment the amount of energy available, Ian Coleman said.

“Throughout the course of human history, quality of life is correlated to energy consumption,” he said. “We see this in the data. We just need more. We need more energy from more sources.”

Right now, no alternative fuel is cost competitive on its own merit, Ian Coleman said.

But some, he said, such as renewable diesel, appear to be more popular with consumers than others.

Renewable diesel starts with raw materials such as soybean oil, corn oil, used cooking oil or beef tallow that’s processed in the same way as crude oil, resulting in a molecule very much like petroleum diesel, Ian Coleman said.

“I think there’s a case for it to be a premium product,” he said. “It’s actually just a cleaner-burning fuel for the engine itself, not just from an emissions standpoint.”

At the same time, individuals generally don’t think about how the price of a loaf of bread might be too expensive for most families if it had to be delivered with a vehicle using unsubsidized, alternative fuel, Ian Coleman said.

“Every movement in society has a unit of energy behind it,” he said.

The goal of Coleman Oil is to be part of a gradual, responsible evolution in the industry that happens over decades, Ian Coleman said.

“What we’re really seeing is it’s going to be a transition, and it’s not going to happen tomorrow,” Bob Coleman said. “A whole lot of technologies have to come to pass and a whole lot of infrastructure has to be built.”

Williams may be contacted at ewilliam@lmtribune.com or (208) 848-2261.