WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has approved ChevronTexaco Corp.'s plan to sell two Texaco U.S. refining and marketing businesses to Shell Oil Co. and Saudi Refining Inc. The sale of Texaco's interest in its Motiva and Equilon joint ventures was one of the conditions the FTC imposed when it approved Chevron Corp.'s $39.5 billion acquisition of Texaco in September.

ALTOONA, Pa. -- Stan Sheetz, president and CEO of Sheetz Inc., and Michael J. O’Connor, president of the Virginia Petroleum Marketers and Convenience Store Association, sparred late last week in an exchange of letters setting the stage for a debate over the below-cost selling of gasoline in Virginia. A bill passed in the state Senate in late January and has moved on to the state House of Delegates, where it will be taken up in mid-February. O’Connor has challenged Sheetz to a public debate within the next two weeks on the merits of the proposed law.

Sheetz has opposed the legislation as anti-free enterprise and anti-motorist, and O’Connor and others allege that Sheetz and other large retailers--including hypermarketers such as Wal-Mart--move into a region and underprice the competition, harming smaller marketers.