New look, same Oil Change International

Today is a big day – I’m very excited to announce that Oil Change International has a new website and new domain name! If you’re reading this, you can see that change for yourself. 

Over the past year we’ve been hard at work redesigning everything about our website – our first complete website overhaul in over a decade. And with nearly 20 years of history to go through, this was a big undertaking! 

After many, many hours of work we’re finally able to show it off to the world. And I hope you’ll agree that it’s an exciting update.

You’ll also notice an important milestone for the organization: we’re no longer priceofoil.org, we’re oilchange.org. I’ll share more of the story behind that shortly, but first why the redesign? 

The goals in redesigning our website were threefold:

1. To serve as a trusted source of information on issues related to fossil fuels and the energy transition;
2. To improve understanding of who OCI is and what we do;
3. To provide ways for folks to engage with our work and support the organization.

To accomplish these we set about to create a website that is both simplified, while also making our massive history of content more accessible. We want those just passing through to see the most important information about who we are and the work we do – and for those coming back regularly to find the analysis and perspectives they’re looking for.

A few notes about the redesign:

• On the homepage you’ll be able to quickly see our most recent blog posts, press releases, and publication in the first section after the header. Note the buttons that let you switch between these content types. You can then click “All Blog Posts / Press Releases / Publications” to see all posts of that type.
• We have a big new featured publication box on the homepage, which will make it easy for you to find our most important recent research. This will change regularly, so check back often to see what new research we’re putting out.
• At the bottom of the page you’ll find lots of ways to take action, either via an online petition, signing up to your email list, or donating.
• There’s a ton of new information about the organization and the work our different teams are up to. You can check this out under “About” and “Program Areas” in the top navigation.
• We spent a lot of time thinking about how we categorize and filter our blogs, press releases, and publications on the listing pages. You can select by type, campaign area, and tags at the top of those pages to more quickly find what you’re looking for. You can also use the search box at the top over the site. 

So what’s the backstory behind the domain name change?

20 years ago Steve Kretzmann, our founder, was dreaming up what would become Oil Change International – but the domain name (oilchange.org) wasn’t available to register. Not to be deterred, Steve registered priceofoil.org as our domain and got to work building the organization you know today. 

Priceofoil.org served us well over the years and remains a core concept behind the work we do. As you know, the true “price of oil” is much higher than what a barrel of oil costs on the market and those costs are left for communities around the world to pay: environmental degradation, corruption, human rights abuses, climate change. These are the true price of oil. 

We’re making the change now to make things a bit less confusing for those who are just finding the organization for the first time — as well as the media, who sometimes think our official name is Price of Oil.

Despite changing our domain name and website, nothing else about the org has changed. Underneath, we’re the same OCI. But now our website and domain better reflects who we are and everything we’re doing to make this world a more beautiful, vibrant, fossil-free place. 

Just for fun, here’s a homepage screenshot from each of our past three major website designs:

The homepage when we launched in 2005

Our first redesign

Our most recent redesign from 2019

Here’s to the next era of Oil Change. I hope you’ll keep coming back to the site to find informative analysis, perspectives on current events, and new ways to join us in this fight.

Yours in solidarity, 

Elizabeth Bast
Executive Director
Oil Change International