Statoil sells petrol stations for €280m

Statoil has sold its chain of petrol service stations to a private group of Irish investors for around €280m, it was confirmed today.

Topaz Energy Group is planning to merge the Statoil chain with the retail and commercial fuel businesses it acquired from Shell in Ireland last year.

Chairman of Topaz, Neil O’Leary, said the business was being bought as a long-term investment.

“Our intention is to merge the business of Statoil with the current operations of Topaz to create one of the country’s leading fuels distribution businesses,” he said.

“For the first time in the history of the State, an Irish-owned company will have a leading position as a supplier of fuel to the market and the needs of Irish customers will be the premier driver of future strategy.

“The combined company will be a multi-billion euro market leader and will be one of Ireland’s largest private businesses.”

It is understood the group paid in the region of €280m for the chain. Topaz is fully owned by a consortium led by Ion Equity which was created a year ago to complete the Shell acquisition.

Statoil’s fuel distribution business includes oil importation facilities in Dublin, Cork and Galway with 12 regional depots and 69 service stations.

The group also sells gasoil, diesel and kerosene into all sectors of the market.

Chief executive of Topaz, Danny Murray, said the group had a licence to continue using both the Shell and Statoil brand.

“We will continue that way for a while. We will be looking at that over the future and may take the option of building an indigenous Irish brand,” he said.

The chief executive said the company would continue with its contracts to buy petrol from both Shell and Statoil.

Mr Murray said the merger of the retail businesses of Shell and Statoil would mark a symbolic reunion of two businesses with close historic links.

“In the early 1990s Statoil Ireland entered the market originally by purchasing BP but for over 50 years the Irish Shell and BP businesses were one, so this is very much a reunion of old friends,” he said.

The Irish Competition Authority is to be notified of the deal.

“We have started that process today and we will be making our notification to the Competition Authority within two weeks,” Mr Murray said.