PKN Orlen plans to complete the rebranding of around 250 stations in Hungary and Slovakia and around 100 stations from the Lotos Group in Poland by the turn of 2022 and 2023, said board member Adam Burak at a press conference.
As part of an agreement approved by the European Commission, Orlen is taking over 185 stations from the MOL fuel company in Hungary and Slovakia, and MOL, in turn, is taking over 417 of the 520 Lotos stations in Poland. Orlen has also announced the take-over of another 100 stations in Eastern Europe, including 25 in Slovakia.
Orlen’s profit in the second quarter rose by more than 50 percent over the same period last year. Only a small proportion of its profits come from retail sales at its stations. The company earns most of its money on petrochemicals, oil refining, and the sale of power and gas.
The company owns six refineries in Poland, Czechia, and Lithuania; it also extracts gas in Poland and Canada.
Hungary’s MOL has just announced that it made a profit of $300 million in the first half of this year, representing a 60 percent increase versus the same period last year. Its profits are mainly from oil and gas extraction; gas and oil prices have risen markedly over the last few months.
But retail sales at MOL’s stations are now actually 40 percent less profitable than last year, primarily due to price caps in Hungary, Croatia, Slovenia, Serbia, and Bosnia.
