NEWS

DCC has bought Esso’s petrol station network in Norway for £235m – its second largest acquisition ever.

Esso Retail Norway is the third largest retail petrol station network in the country, selling 600 million litres of fuel each year, across 142 stations, and has contracts to supply 108 other Esso-branded stations owned privately.

Norway’s largest grocer Norges Gruppen will continue to operate the shops in the stations.

The deal takes the number of petrol stations that DCC owns to almost 1,000, as it takes advantage of oil majors selling off their retail stock.

DCC announced four years ago that buying European petrol stations would be one of its key drivers of growth. It already owns Esso’s French petrol station network and Sweden’s Qstar, a portfolio of unmanned petrol stations.

Its largest acquisition came in 2015 when it bought French gas company Butagaz from oil firm Shell for £338m.

Chief executive Tommy Breen said the company thought there were more opportunities to buy similar portfolios from other oil players. Large oil companies still own around 28pc of Europe’s retail petrol sites.

“From a modest position three years ago, DCC Energy will operate over 1,000 retail petrol stations and is ambitious to continue this development,” he said.

“On the back of the French acquisition, we have build a back office function in Ireland, so we have low cost infrastructure which I think gives us a competitive advantage. We expect this acquisition to make a 15pc return on capital in its first full year of ownership.”