ProJET and their much-loved hotdogs remembered

Older Malaysians will remember that there was a brand of fuel called ProJET sold 20 years ago. The ProJET business was a joint venture between American petroleum company Conoco Philips and Sime Darby which started in 1999.

ProJET was the first new fuel brand in Malaysia after some three decades and it aimed to grab a slice of the growing market. Apart from fuels, the ProJet stations are remembered for their Destina convenience stores which also provided light snacks – like the foot-long hotdogs that were self-prepared.

A pioneer in credit card payments
The ProJET stations also accepted payments by credit cards, common today, but still not generally introduced by other companies then.

Some of the stations became popular with car enthusiasts who met there regularly and sometimes took up all the parking areas that the station had to take action to prevent inconvenience to their customers.

Over 40 stations
There were over 40 stations, mainly in the Klang Valley with some in Melaka and Negeri Sembilan. The network was to grow to 150 stations but that was never realised as the business ceased in 2007. In spite of being popular, ProJET only managed to have around 1% share of the market and Conoco decided not to continue.

The stations, including 14 unused sites, were acquired by Shell. Operations of the Destina stores were already taken over by 7-Eleven in 2005 and eventually, Shell took over with its own operations. Incidentally, there were also another 147 stations (under the Jet brand) in Thailand which Conoco Philips sold to PTT as it also decided to exit from the retail business there.

The little car that started Perodua on the road to success