Shell filling up
Shell Polska has announced that it intends to add a further 17 filling stations to its network of 116 in the next three years. This investment will cost around USD8.5m.
Last year the company opened twelve new stations.
The company however says that investing is getting harder as it is increasingly difficult to find good locations which is the reason it was unable to fulfil earlier plans.
Therefore Shell will concentrate on obtaining sites from competitors.
According to Witold Ozimski of stockbrokers Refleks concerns like Shell which have their own products will want to increase their own market share. He considers that the best earnings are today in retail and taking sites from competitors could be one way of going about it On 1 March 2000 Shell Polska acquired 16 stations and two shops that had belonged Texaco. In return Texaco got some of Shell's petrol stations in the United Kingdom.
Witold Ozimski also thinks that there are stations belonging to competitors that would suit Shell's requirements. For example the Dex network belonging to Dexpol would suit the Anglo-Dutch multinational.
Shell first came to Poland in 1920 when it opened a chain of petrol stations.
After the war it returned in 1950 offering oils and chemicals. Shell Polska came into being in 1992 and two years later the first filling station was opened.
Shell Polska is part of the Royal Dutch Shell group which was founded in 1907.
It possesses or manages 2,000 firms in 120 countries and employs 120,000 people.