About 30 groups are believed to have made formal expressions of interest in buying the Statoil business. Statoil, which is Ireland's biggest petrol retailer, has 236 stations, of which 69 are company owned. Also on the block are 16 distribution depots and oil terminals in Dublin, Galway, Cork and Derry.

Due diligence has already begun at Statoil, which is expected to attract a price tag of at least 150m. That may be substantially higher, however, if a bidder such as Irving Oil pays a premium to get a foothold in the Irish market. Irving lost out to Statoil in 1996 in the competition to buy Conoco Jet.