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It is not only the small independent oil companies in the North Sea that are doing well from the oil majors’ need to sell assets and cut borrowings to ride out the low oil price. DCC, the Irish distribution conglomerate, has just done its second biggest deal, buying Esso’s chain of Norwegian petrol stations for £235 million.
This adds to purchases in Denmark, Sweden and France, where late last year DCC bought Gas Européen Holdings, to add to the 2015 purchase of Butagaz, which supplies liquefied petroleum gas and is still the biggest deal so far.
DCC, one of those FTSE 100 constitutents that few outside the City will have heard of, is almost entirely in distribution, although there is a small contract manufacturer of