Statoil sold its Latvian gas station business to Canada's Alimentation Couche-Tard in 2012. The takeover entailed a rebranding of the Statoil gas stations, said Cirсle K Latvia representative Kristīna Lazdiņa.
The State Language Center, Latvia's language authority, say that the company might have to teach people how to pronounce the new name.
"Perhaps a massive marketing campaign could achieve that we will call them Circle K in the future, or perhaps the Latvian pronunciation [..] but if you translate it directly into Latvian, you get Kaplis ['garden hoe')," said Viesturs Razumovskis, a representative of the State Language Center.
Indeed 'Kaplis' seems to have caught on as a nickname among gas station aficionados already, giving the rebranding effort a comic twist.
The last Statoil gas station in Latvia should be rebranded by October 2017.
