Canada’s Couche-Tard has agreed to buy the forecourt chain CST Brands for almost $4bn (€3.5bn), using its biggest-ever acquisition to expand its foothold in Texas and eastern Canada.

IF YOU buy the quite-grandly titled Wilton House in Cork’s Bishopstown/Wilton suburbs, you’ll be spending more on doing it up.

A strong development-play deal close to €6.5m is in final stages of negotiation, on Cork city’s prime city centre 0.8 acre development site at the Square Deal furniture store.

Billionaire businessman Denis O’Brien has struck a deal with Canadian convenience and fuel retailer Couche-Tard to offload his Topaz chain of petrol stations weeks after expanding its network.

Applegreen, the Irish petrol forecourt firm which made its stock market debut in June, plans to open a further 10 outlets across Ireland, the UK, and the US by the end of the year as it seeks to tap the strong economic recovery.

AS the Nama sale of Wilton Shopping Centre inches forward, discount retailer Lidl is about to seek planning permission to join Aldi in the same Cork City western suburb.

A PEARL of a riverside Cork site, between the gates of UCC and the city centre, is for sale for €2.5m.

Applegreen, the Irish forecourt fuel supplier, plans to benefit from the “grim” reputation of motorway service stations in Britain as it announced a €70m placing of shares and detailed its expansion plans.

International sales, marketing and distribution business DCC yesterday raised more than €270m in a share placing, on the same day it announced bigger-than- expected earnings growth and its largest ever acquisition.

A CORK city suburban site — with a long planning and sales history, as well as one-time high hopes of development — has come up for sale, right next door to the sprawling Cork University Hospital (CUH) campus.

The Denis O’Brien-controlled Topaz Energy is to invest €20m this year on overhauling and upgrading its retail network, before launching a fresh investment programme in 2016 when it formally takes ownership of Esso’s forecourt network.

Topaz Energy today announced a 9% increase in operating profits, to €13.9m for the year ended March 31, 2014.

Topaz has announced it will re-brand all the Esso stations in Ireland after its parent company acquired the business.

A man accused of trying to rob a petrol station in Dublin is going to apply for High Court bail amid concerns over his safety while in prison.

USA: Miss America is asking a Pennsylvania school district to reconsider the punishment of a student who asked her to a dance during a question- and-answer session at assembly.

One of the UK’s main underground oil pipes has been shut down as police investigate whether tens of thousands of litres of fuel have been extracted from it.

A man and woman accused of trying to rob a petrol station in Dublin last night have been refused bail.

A hi-tech survey vessel has arrived in the Port of Cork as it helps hunt for new oil deposits off the south coast.

Fastnet Oil & Gas has initiated a farm-out process to help cover the cost of its forthcoming $18m (€14m) surveying activity in the Celtic Sea, which will be the biggest of its kind ever undertaken in the area.

Oil production at Ireland’s first commercial discovery could reach as high as 20,000 barrels a day when production commences at the Barryroe field in the next three years.

Hopes for Ireland’s first commercial oil strike have soared after tests broke key targets yesterday.

Ireland is set to become a major focus of large international companies looking for oil, if the initial test flows from Providence Resources appraisal oil well — 50km off the Cork coast — prove to be commercial.

THE Irish arm of international energy giant Exxon Mobil last year sustained a pre-tax loss of €7.7 million in spite of revenues climbing to €654m.

A leak at a North Sea oil platform owned by Royal Dutch Shell has been brought under control, the company has confirmed.

The plight of a group of striking oil workers in Kazakhstan is being highlighted in Dublin this afternoon.

“WHO’S the cougar?” The slang word, commonly used as a reference to a woman of a certain age who is attractive to younger men, would have been unusual parliamentary language at the best of times – but as a TD shouted it while the Dáil chamber was convulsed by a row over sexism, it was especially surprising.

DESPITE a continued fall in the price of crude oil, motorists are being warned to expect a continued “slow increase” in the price of fuel because of fluctuating currency values, as well as the recent introduction of a carbon tax.

THE country’s leading bloodstock auctioneers Goffs has reported tough trading conditions in the year to the end of March 2009.

Tipperary’s Babs Keating and Kilkenny’s Pat Henderson met in Clonmel, Co Tipperary during the week. Diarmuid O’Flynn spoke to them.

ESSO Ireland has brought a court action to compel a man to honour a €5.3 million contract to buy a service station in Tallaght, Dublin.

GREENCORE, the world’s biggest maker of prepared sandwiches, has been in the news for all the wrong reasons lately.

Gardaí investigating four men accused of murdering a Limerick bouncer have told the Central Criminal Court jury at their trial that the chief prosecution witness had not complained about screaming in his head when he came forward to admit to the murder.

ESSO Ireland made its first profit for three years in 2006 helped by the sale of some of its filling stations.

Shell and Esso are to sell their interests in a number of joint North Sea assets, it was announced today.

THE search for the body of a teenager missing since last weekend will resume this morning.

Tullow Oil has released details of its redevelopment of the Schooner-Ketch programme in the North Sea.

ADVANCE warning signs of “No Petrol Ahead” could soon be erected in rural Ireland as service stations close down their pumps, a retailers group has warned.

Seven Lithuanians have appeared in court charged with a series of offences linked to organised crime.

Oil giant Exxon Mobil set a milestone for global company profits today by revealing it made $33.86bn (€28bn) in its last financial year.

The Government should scrap a 2003 VAT increase on petrol and diesel in light of rising fuel costs, it was claimed today.

OIL giant Shell is in talks to sell off its 50 petrol stations in Ireland.

ESSO is to buy three petrol stations from Maxol. Esso will take over Maxol sites at Dublin Airport, Palmerstown in west Dublin and on the North Road in Drogheda.