Statoil Plans Initial Offering for Fuel and Retail Unit in Fourth Quarter

Statoil ASA, Norway’s largest oil company, submitted an application for an initial public offering of shares in its fuel and retail unit in Oslo later this year.

The application is a necessary regulatory step for the IPO to take place in the fourth quarter of 2010, the company said in a regulatory notice. The IPO will go ahead “if market conditions allow,” the company said. It didn’t say how much cash it hoped to raise from the sale.

The division runs more than 2,300 gas stations in eight countries, including in Scandinavia, where it has a 23 percent market share, and in Poland and Russia. The unit, which also supplies lubricants and aviation and marine fuels, had adjusted profit of 1.2 billion kroner ($206 million) in the first nine months of last year.

Statoil’s board approved the plan in March and the Stavanger-based company will remain a majority owner in the unit, it said at the time.

To contact the reporter on this story: Jack Jordan in London jjordan22@bloomberg.net.

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