Terpel is a Colombian oil and gas company, which operates in Colombia, Panama, Ecuador, Chile. Terpel offers several service like gas stations, convenience stores, car services etc. For the matter of simplicity this paper will just focus on the competitive priorities in the gas station market. Since the oil industry is a highly competitive industry with very price sensitive customers, the companies’ competitive priorities lie to a great extent on price. It can be said that gas price is an order qualifier; meaning if gas prices are higher than average, Terpel would not even considered as a gas provider by customers. The gas industry is always exposed to a highly competitive price war in which each competitor tries to undercut each other’s gas prices. Because customers are very price sensitive they tend to switch gas providers as soon as they find a cheaper offer. Therefore, it is really hard for companies to create a loyal and consistent customer base. This is one of the main reasons that price is so important, since consumers chose their favourable offer according to the lowest price been offered in the market. This importance is reflected in the competition and can therefore be said to be a main competitive priority for Terpel in the gas market. However, price is not the only competitive priority for Terpel. Since a car is a high investment consumers are also concerned about the quality for the offered. If the quality of the gas were low this would be reflected in the lifetime of a car engine. Therefore customers place a lot of value on the quality of the gas been offered. Hence, if the quality were not sufficient customers would change the gas station. For this reason also quality is one of the competitive priorities of Terpel. It can also be said that consumers would not trade lower quality for a lower price since it would harm the engine of their cars. Moreover the quality of the gas should not only be of high quality but the quality should also be consistent. Therefore if the price is sufficient then customers go for the best quality. For this reason quality can be considered as order winner. In summary, for Terpel the most competitive priorities are quality, consistency and price. The customers first decides upon the price which station to consider and then goes for the best quality. Therefore, if Terpel is not able to be one of the best in these disciplines, they would lose a lot of consumers to their competitors. Last but not least it can be assumed that also volume flexibility is a key priority of Terpel. Since customers want to refuel their cars in one single process and not in different sub process it is important that the gas station is able to offer as much gas is needed to serve the demand of customers, even when gas is short in the whole market. Looking at these priorities it seems to be a hard job for Terpel to compete with global players like SHELL, which are able to make use of economies of scale and scope in

their production process and are therefore able to especially compete on price which is a major decision criteria in the gas market. However, if Terpel is able to keep up with these prices it is able to serve a big market with a high demand of gas.