NEW YORK – Maintaining relationships with state and local lawmakers has proven valuable for independent petroleum marketers fighting to maintain market share against hypermarkets.

According to a report in The Wall Street Journal’s online edition this morning, Wal-Mart officials have admitted that, while they have the business relationships to successfully compete with independent marketers at the pumps, they lack the personal relationships necessary to compete with marketers in the statehouse.

NEW YORK — Chevron Corp. scheduled a shareholders meeting on October 9 to vote on its merger with Texaco Inc. While the deal would create the world’s fifth largest oil company, it still needs approval from anti-trust regulators concerned about the combination’s size in the U.S. refining and retail market.

On Friday, Chevron presented anti-trust regulators with a plan to sell Texaco’s share in U.S. refining and marketing joint ventures, or put it in a holding trust, in an effort to close the $34.4 billion deal within the next two months. The merger agreement was originally struck in October 2000, but has been held up due to antitrust regulators’ request that Texaco divest of its share of Equilon Enterprises LLC and Motiva Enterprises LLC, refining and marketing venture it operates with Royal Dutch/Shell Group and Saudi Aramco.