76 Products Co. Sold

COSTA MESA — Unocal Corp.’s $2-billion sale of its 76 Products Co. subsidiary to oil refinery and convenience store operator Tosco Corp. was completed Tuesday but Tosco officials said they still had no tally of how many 76 Products workers would be laid off in the consolidation that will follow.

Tosco has said it plans to move 76 Product’s headquarters from Costa Mesa and merge it with Tosco Marketing Co. in Phoenix. As many as 550 of 76 Product’s 3,600 employees are expected to be laid off as a result of the sale, including about 200 workers at former Unocal refineries in San Francisco, Santa Maria and El Segundo.

Tosco, which runs a number of independent refineries and owns the Circle K convenience store chain, has said that it intends to keep a regional headquarters in Southern California--most likely in the Costa Mesa high-rise that 76 Products spent $11 million to refurbish. The lease has nine years to run.