Obligations imposed by the Bundeskartellamt in its decisions in the Shell / Dea and BP / Veba Oel (Aral) merger cases fulfilled within the specified time limit

The strict obligations under which, in December 2001, the Bundeskartellamt cleared the planned mergers of Deutsche Shell GmbH, Hamburg and DEA Mineralöl AG, Hamburg, as well as Deutsche BP AG, Hamburg and Veba Oel AG, Gelsenkirchen, have been fulfilled by the companies within the specified time limit.

The obligations mainly concerned the German petrol station market. Shell / DEA and BP / Veba Oel committed themselves to selling 5.3 per cent and 4 per cent, respectively, of their market shares in domestic fuel sales which was to be achieved primarily by selling petrol stations. Further obligations were aimed at improving supply possibilities for independent petrol station operators.

The President of the Bundeskartellamt, Ulf Böge, stated: “The obligations in the petrol station sector can be considered as completely fulfilled. Only the authority approval of two takeover projects is still pending. The fulfilment of these obligations leads to a striking change in the colour spectrum of the German petrol station market. 1,700 of approx. 15,300 petrol stations in Germany will change owners or brands. In addition changes will also take place in the German motorway petrol stations. I am confident that both small and medium-sized mineral oil companies and consumers will benefit from the newly changed pro-competitive structures in the German petrol station market. This is also because such new owners as ORLEN and OMV stand for independence and are experienced in the petrol station business.”

The Polish company ORLEN and the Austrian OMV which have acquired approx. 500 and 280 petrol stations, respectively, from BP/Veba Oel’s pool of petrol stations have so far either not been represented in the German petrol station business at all or only to a small extent. A third large acquiring company is TotalFinaElf which intends to take over about 130 petrol stations from the Shell/DEA pool. Böge particularly welcomed the fact that a large number of small and medium-sized mineral oil companies and petrol station operators have taken over small groups of or individual petrol stations from Shell/DEA.

The fuel supply to these new owners will take place independently of the sellers’ sources. The mineral oil volumes newly brought to the German market by ORLEN for example are provided from its own capacities. The Austrian company OMV has acquired refinery capacities in the southern German area for this purpose, but also brings mineral oil from its own capacities onto the German market. One component of the agreement regarding the sale of petrol stations to small and medium-sized mineral oil companies was the offer to supply fuel at favourable terms over several years which, at least for a limited period of time, can be seen as a guarantee for the secure supply of fuel at favourable terms to independent petrol station operators.