[Article] Statoil to pull out of Ireland...

Mexicola

THE retail petrol trade is set for a major shake-up after Scandinavian oil giant Statoil said yesterday it plans to pull out of the market in Ireland.

Sharp competition in the petrol business, in particular from Tesco, has prompted the Norwegian company to sell up. Tesco sells a litre of petrol at least 3c cheaper than companies like Statoil.

Statoil supplies petrol to 236 forecourts in Ireland and directly owns 70 of these. It also is involved in commercial oil supply and owns terminals and heating oil distribution businesses here, employing 1,100 staff.

Business sources said last night they expected the sale of the Irish Statoil operation to generate in the region of €250m for the company.

The AA's Conor Faughnan warned that existing large players in the Irish market should not be allowed to snap up the Statoil operation here.

There were already concerns about competition in the forecourt business with dramatic differences in the price of petrol from one station to another, he said.

corktina

it is surprising how many petrol stations have closed recently......eg north of Charleville there used to be three, now only one.....

dts

I am sure this will hit us in the pocket. They are opening a Tesco petrol station in Mullingar and as soon as that starts up I am sure you will see alot of other small stations closing.
I have to say statoil have always been one of the more expensive places in Westmeath.

Maskhadov

will it be much of a loss?

mike65

It will be if they were nearest and cheapest!

It weird how the more fuel is used the fewer filling stations there are to drive to. Esso and Shell (?) both closed a stack of outlets recently. Statoil are concentrating on Scandanavia and Eastern Europe.

Mike.

abakan

same is going to happen that is happening in the UK now.

teaco come in really cheap, wait until all the samller stations around it close and then they push up their prices with relatively no competition.

statoil - is a prime example - not much profit here - because the likes of teso can afford to undercut the competition.

I see it myself when i come to dublin - the prices in some place of 5 -10 cents a liter cheapet than home,

murphaph

Yeah, my local statoil station is a minute's walk and is always reasnably cheap. it's a 24 hr too-always handy when you're stuck for something. hope it remains even under new management.

jlang

abakan wrote:

teaco come in really cheap, wait until all the samller stations around it close and then they push up their prices with relatively no competition.

statoil - is a prime example - not much profit here - because the likes of teso can afford to undercut the competition.

Interestingly, the fuel is delivered to Tesco in Statoil trucks - presumably either Tesco buy wholesale or whatever from Statoil or they share an importer/distributor.

whiskeyman

Interesting.
Irish Shell (Retail) gone last year... now Statoil.

I wonder will this affect Statoils contract with supplying Tesco their fuel.

Who's expected to come in for this I wonder?

The Norway Post wrote:

Norway's Statoil has announced that it will sell all its gas stations in Ireland. It has also decided to sell off its 30 per cent share in the Ringsend gass fired energy plant.

Statoil information director Morten Henriksrud says the decision to sell its 236 gas stations and reduce its dominating market position in Ireland is based on strategic considerations.
He says Statoil wants to put more effort into the Nordic markets and in the Baltics.

He points out that Statoil is market leader in Latvia, Estiona and Norway, number two in Sweden and also has a strong position in both Poland and Lithuania.

I don't think there's the same market competition in the above mentioned countries somehow...

Alun

Is this going to be the same deal as when Shell "pulled out", i.e. they only sold their filling station business, but retained their fuel distribution and kept the branding on the newly owned filling stations, but nothing else really changed? Or are they pulling out of the whole distribution business altogether?

whiskeyman

Alun wrote:

Is this going to be the same deal as when Shell "pulled out", i.e. they only sold their filling station business, but retained their fuel distribution and kept the branding on the newly owned filling stations, but nothing else really changed? Or are they pulling out of the whole distribution business altogether?

Total pull out it seems, of it's retail, commercial & industrial businesses here.
However, the future of these will depend on the buyer(s).

mike65

In the paper today Conor Faughnan is saying the business should be broken up to encourage competiton incluing not selling the forecourts to a single buyer.

Mike.

Our man in Havana

I see it as no harm, as these neck of the woods, Laois they are by far the dearest by a long way, differences of at least 5 cent a litre and there is no tesco around. The local garages are by far the cheapest. Good Riddance.

Trampas

As far as i know Tesco uses statoil fuel in its tanks.

Anytime i seen them filling up in Tesco it has always been a statoil tanker

lostexpectation

was watching primetime last night and I suddenly realised that I (and others?) nearly seem to view Conor Faughnan as some sort of friendly neutral commentator on transport issues, he's around for so long, most of time just helping us avoid traffic blocks and does seem like a reasonable man, but then he works for the AA, he motor industry man...

mike65

According to the Sunday Times Tesco look like being the mostly likely to buy up Statiols forcourts, so they can expand thier reach of both filing stations and mini-marts.

Mike.

Maskhadov

I hope we dont turn into Tesco hell like the UK. i.e having thousands of tesco shops nationwide with the same choice of food everywhere

Our man in Havana

What harm if it casues cheaper fuel to be available more freely?

Capt'n Midnight

Bond-007 wrote:

What harm if it casues cheaper fuel to be available more freely?

Walmart.

johnnyrotten

Its GAS:rolleyes: Statoil supply Tescos petrol!

Capt'n Midnight

From 2002 http://archives.tcm.ie/businesspost/2002/06/16/story124425628.asp

"This was going to happen," said Statoil's Grimes. "We've been getting ourselves ready. In France, over 50 per cent of fuel is sold out of the back of hypermarkets. Five or six years ago we recognised the reality. It's happened in every European country. It will happen in Ireland. There's no point trying to keep them out with planning."
...
"Statoil's branding exercise has been all about fair pricing. Texaco is trying to develop a quality emphasis around food and coffee and it's the same with Esso and Shell."

How many people actually use Texaco/Esso/Shell Cafes as anything other than a pitstop.

parsi

Yes but maybe people would use them in preference to another pitstop.

The French thing is interesting - its a known fact (!!) that Total is way dearer than the hypermarkets even where the hypermarket is 500 yeards away. Of ocurse you won't find an unknown brand along the motorways. A curiosity in Dinard is that the Elf in town is the same price as the hypermarkets near St Malo though the reverse would be the usual situation.

mike65

Texaco are also pulling out of forcourt ops.

Mike.

Our man in Havana

mike65 wrote:

Texaco are also pulling out of forcourt ops.

Mike.

Who will be left?

dts

Shell and BP BY THE LOOK OF THIS REPORT


BP Profits Bonanza
Updated: 08:00, Tuesday February 07, 2006
BP has joined Shell in reporting record annual pre-tax profits.

The surging price of crude oil sent BP's pre-tax profits for 2005 to £12.8bn - up from its haul of £8.8bn a year before.

The increase came despite a fall in production after rigs were damaged in the Gulf of Mexico by the devastating hurricane season.

However, the profits were below the UK best of £12.9bn set by rival Royal Dutch Shell last week - the biggest in UK corporate history.

The huge profits led to claims that the giant was profiteering at the expense of motorists and one million households in fuel poverty - accusations which Shell denied.

In a trading statement last month, BP estimated that production fell 2% in the final three months of 2005 compared with a year earlier, from 4.1m barrels of oil per day to 4.01m barrels.

But Barclays Stockbrokers analyst Paul Singer said the results would still be "strong" compared with the third quarter.

Production then dropped to 3.8m barrels due to the devastating season of hurricanes in the United States.

BP has already warned that the hurricanes cost it more than £500m in 2005.

Production was cut at its rigs in the Gulf of Mexico and at onshore refineries such as Texas City, where there was a fatal fire in March.

The bulk of BP's profits come from its upstream business, which involves getting oil and gas out of the ground.