Low-cost petrol stations company Plenoil enters Portuguese market

 In Company expansion, News, Petrol and Diesel

The Spanish petroleum company Plenoil, the largest operator of low-cost fuels in Spain, has entered the Portuguese market with four petrol stations, all of them in the north of the country: Santa Maria da Feira, Viana do Castelo, Guarda and Vila Nova de Gaia. Portugal is the first European country to which the company has expanded its business beyond Spain.

The brand promises to slash prices at the pumps by 10% of the national average.

“After consolidating a leading position in Spain, with more than 260 filling stations in operation and more than 3.5 million monthly customers, Plenoil chose Portugal to start its international expansion,” said the fuel retailer in a statement.

In a first phase, after opening the first four stations to the north, the expansion plan foresees the opening of 10 filling stations in total, in several regions of the country, such as Lisbon, Porto, Coimbra, Aveiro, Braga, Viana do Castelo and Guarda.

These “low cost” stations from Plenoil in Portugal will be open 24 hours a day, be fully automated, and during the day customers will be served by a Plenoil employee.

“We want to contribute to shaking up the energy sector in Portugal,” said José Montoya, Plenoil’s Expansion Director. “Our goal is to lower fuel prices by about 10% of the national average, thus responding to Portuguese consumer needs, with a direct impact on their quality of their lives,” he adds.

In operation since 2015, last year Plenoil inaugurated a new service station in Spain every five days, which created 200 new jobs.

It is the second Spanish low-cost retail fuel provider to expand into Portugal this year.

After closing 2022 with sales of €700 million, doubling the results reached in the previous year, the Spanish chain of Petroprix petrol stations, founded by Manuel Santiago in Martos,  in Jaén, Spain, in 2013, said it was embarking on a strategy to expand to Portugal, Chile and Panama, starting its internationalisation in Portugal.

Its arrival in Portugal was initially scheduled for the end of last year, but it finally moved into Portugal in September. “Bureaucracy, once again… (had hampered its arrival), it’s nothing new, because in Spain licenses take a long time, and the same happened to us in Portugal,” said the Director of Business Development at Petroprix Jaime Vega de Seoane.

Its first petrol station opened in Águeda on 18 September at a local retail park and can fill up six cars at the same time.

Petroprix is the largest network of low-cost petrol stations in Spain, where it operates 160, practising fuel prices between 10 and 15 cents below those elsewhere in Portugal.

Petroprix promises to try to replicate its success in Portugal: “It is too early to commit to what the price difference will be, but we are committed to being the cheapest,” said the director.