NEwS – EUrOPE 6 tOtaL's F1 corporate advertising campaign continues For the third consecutive year, under contract with Renault and partnering with the Lotus Renault GP Team, TOTAL continues to develop its image in France and worldwide with its Formula One, 2011 corporate campaign. The 2011 campaign objective is to consolidate TOTAL's image as a bold, innovative company, as reflected in the participation in Formula 1 racing. It showcases TOTAL's position as a partner you can count on: “TOTAL, partner of your challenges”, in this event as well as in other major projects. See TOTAL's ads at Nice Airport (France) during the Monte Carlo Grand Prix and discover the F1 Lotus Renault GP car in Terminal 1. Supermarkets in UK cut fuel prices Three of the UK's main supermarkets have cut petrol prices – Morrisons was the first to drop its fuel prices – announcing a cut of 1 p per litre for petrol and 3 p per litre for diesel. It also promised diesel would be no more than 140 p per litre and that petrol would fall to an average of 135.2 p. Asda then followed by announcing identical cuts to petrol and a 4 p cut on diesel, stating that maximum prices at its filling stations would be 135.7 p per litre for diesel and 134.7 p per litre for petrol. Tesco joined in shortly after, saying it would cut unleaded prices by 1 p per litre and diesel by 3 p per litre, matching Morrisons. The cuts come after the AA called on fuel sellers to pass on the falling price of wholesale petrol, which has been dropping for the past month. KazMunaiGas plans to purchase Helios In July the KazMunaiGas company is planning to start the purchase of the Helios chain of petrol stations. The Helios company owns 228 petrol stations in Kazakhstan and purchases fuel at the Pavlodar oil refinery. In 2010 petrol consumption reached 3.5 million tonnes, 680 tonnes of jet fuel and about 4 million of diesel fuel. The KazMunaiGas, Helios and Sinoil are the largest retail players at the Kazakhstan market. Carmakers rethink sustainability approach amid E10 fuel fiasco in Germany Germany's introduction of the E10 biofuel has been a public-relations disaster and the auto industry is already rethinking its approach to sustainability. E10 was supposed to be a step towards Germany's clean-energy future. Spurred by governmental quotas for biofuel, the country's petroleum industry introduced a new, ostensibly environmentally-friendly petrol with 10 percent ethanol this year. But LatESt NEwS, EVENtS, JObS ONLINE – www.PEtrOLPLaza.COM somehow, consumer preference was left out of the equation, sparking an unexpected public backlash by car-loving Germans. A report by the petroleum industry association MWV reveals that only one in five German drivers fuelled up on E10 last month. Two thirds of motorists currently know whether E10 is safe for their cars, but nearly half of these drivers still refuse to buy the controversial fuel. French tOtaL is content doing business with wissol Wissol, one of the leading companies in the energy sector in Georgia, is successfully continuing its business and according to Samson Pkhakadze, Chairman of the Wissol Board of Directors, in the near future the company plans to add 3 new Auto Express service centres to its network. Wissol is an exclusive importer of French TOTAL lubricants available at Auto Express and French partners positively evaluate their business partnership in Georgia. During the next 18 months the company is planning to enlarge the network and Auto Express branches. “It's a big honour for us to manage a business with the world's giant oil company, French TOTAL. TOTAL and Wissol have great business relations. We have quite ambitious plans with more branches opening in Tbilisi as well as in different parts of Georgia” a spokesman said. Lotos Group sale a political headache Serious interest in buying Poland's Lotos Group has come only from Russian companies, making the sale of the government-owned refiner politically problematic before this autumn's parliamentary election. Unofficially, the Russian companies who submitted bids for Lotos before the treasury ministry's deadline at the end of last month include TNK BP, GazpromNeft and Rosneft. Russian companies have long been interested in Lotos, the country's second largest refiner – which owns a modern refinery in northern Poland as well as a chain of petrol stations and some oil production on the Baltic Sea – as a way of gaining a foothold in the Polish market. However, the Polish press reported that Biosyntec, a French biotechnology company that makes cigarette filters and Trafigura Beheer, a Dutch fuel trader, also made bids. MOL romania appoints CEO: business woman Kinga Ágnes daradics MOL Romania has appointed Kinga Ágnes Daradics new CEO and Country Retail Manager. She will replace Szabolcs Ferencz, who has been promoted to lead a new divi- sion with MOL, Corporate Affairs. Ferencz has led the Romanian subsidiary since the beginning of 2010. Kinga Ágnes Daradics started working with MOL in 2003 and led the gas cards division. She supervised this division's activities in nine countries, Romania included. She has graduated at the Babes Bolyai University in Cluj Napoca and holds an MBA from the Sheffield University. MOL operates 128 petrol stations in Romania, while its network in Europe reaches 1 500 outlets. MOL also owns five refineries in Hungary, Slovakia, Croatia and Italy.
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