Petrol Company Road Maps from Norway
Petrol Company Road Maps from Norway |
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Norway has always had a relatively large number of filling stations for its population, reflecting its low population density, and the need for every remote community to have at least one public service station. Before the war the market was dominated by Esso Standard, Shell, MIL-BP (which was formed when BP made its first move outside the UK by buying the domestic MIL company in the 1920s), NOR Bensin and, probably, Texaco. (The fate of NOR Bensin is unknown; it appears to have been acquired by another company in the 1960s.)
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Esso's 1939 map of Norway is an A4 size map that unfolds to a two colour map six times that size printed on quite poor quality paper. Produced by NAF, the Norwegian automobile club, for free distribution at Standard stations (by the Norwegian companies: Ost- and Westlandske Petroleumscompagni A/S) it covers both Norway and Sweden. Around the margins, it has inset town plans for 152 localities showing, inter alia, the Standard service stations. Shell issued its own version of the same map. |
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After the period of wartime occupation, the main companies returned to the market, but were soon joined by Mobil which had been an important marketer of lubricants for many years and - in 1959 - Fina. Small chains were also established by Gulf and the OK co-operative. This would probably have stayed as the pattern had it not been for the discovery of huge oil reserves in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea in 1969 by Fina and its US partner, Phillips Petroleum.
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Shell soon restarted selling maps after the war as can be seen from a 1948 South Norway issue. Red card covers contain a map prepared by Emil Mostue to the general design of Shell's main cartographic partners, Foldex.
The next two maps date from the 1950s. Esso's 1956 map uses its standard General Drafting Company design in a straightforward folding sheet map at the relatively small scale of 1:1,950,000 (about 31 miles to the inch). In contrast BP's 1957 map created by Dreyer A/S covered the country at 1:1,000,000 by splitting it into three sections using a folding system similar to that of Foldex, with a paper map pasted into card covers. Using a relatively large scale allowed "all the larger and some of the smaller" BP stations to be marked, at a time when 1,400 BP outlets served the 4 million Norwegians.
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By 1963 Shell had moved to a purely paper map as well, again using Emil Mostue for the cartography at a scale of 1:1,000,000 (above right). Shell's only know city map from Norway covers Oslo (left) and dates from 1961. Although the cover is not branded, it was jointly produced by the Oslo and District Tourist Information Service and Shell, and both marks and lists all Shell stations. Designed mainly for foreign tourists, a German language version explicitly says "FOR DISTRIBUTION ABROAD". |
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Initially the only change was that Fina started grading its fuels Eko-Super, after the Ekofisk oil field. But the Norwegian Government was concerned that the North Sea oil would not only benefit foreign companies. It soon established Statoil, as an equity partner in all upstream activities, and BP sold its 1,000 filling stations to a Statoil subsidiary creating the new Norol brand. Norsk Hydro, which had interests in electricity and aluminium, also moved into the oil business, although its first handful of service stations were soon sold to Norol in the mid-1970s. The third main Norwegian oil company established to take advantage of North Sea oil was Saga Petroleum, the only one wholly within the private sector. Although it publicly raised the prospect of buying service stations in the late 1980s, it never did, concentrating instead on more profitable upstream activities. Saga was eventually acquired by Norsk Hydro in 2000.
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As with many other countries, maps from the 1970s and 1980s are less common than those from the preceding two decades. Shell's 1973 issue was essentially the same as its map from 10 years before, except that the cover image had been replaced by a photograph. Texaco used Fabricus for its 1983 map; the extract shows how its stations were located on the city inserts (such as Stavanger), although not on the main map. Norol's 1983 map of Southern Norway still uses the same basic cover design that was previously used by BP for a number of years. By 1985 Esso had moved to card covers enclosing a map at the widely used scale of 1:1,000,000 by JW Cappelans.
Norol image courtesy of Thomas Been
Statoil was legally obliged to operate solely in Norway until 1984, when a relaxation in the rules led to it soon acquiring interests internationally, including the former Esso chains in Sweden and Denmark. Hydro, not wanting to be left out, bought out Mobil in the same countries, and added the 200 Norwegian Mobil outlets in 1992 after the ending of a non-competition clause with Norol/Statoil. As it still lacked scale, it merged its downstream activities in Norway and Denmark with those of Texaco in 1995 to form HydroTexaco. Statoil eventually re-branded the Norol assets under its own name, to bring them into line with those in the rest of Scandinavia. |
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Most of the main players in the Norwegian market have maintained maps in the last decade. The 1996 Hydro Texaco shows how both logos were used for a couple of years after the merger; the map uses the Folia/Legindkort system popular in Scandinavia dividing the country into strips. Esso's Gico map uses a similar system; it also dates from 1996 and Gico also produced a version for Fina with a small Fina logo where the Esso one is on the map illustrated. Gico also produced an Esso version of their Danish map; it is likely that a Sweden map would have completed the set.
By 1998 HydroTexaco had a new single logo, and saved money by producing a reversible map combining Norway with Denmark, their other marketing territory. Folia/Legindkort still prepared the maps, but using a more conventional system. Shell have issued several Norwegian maps in the past few years. The 1996 has a relatively non-standard cover design, but again uses Folia/Legindkort cartography, and marks Shell stations by both a logo on the map and address. Statoil's ca1996 issue completes the set of major branded maps, and it too opted for Folia/Legindkort cartography. |
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Considerably fewer maps have been issued by petrol companies in recent years. Shell and Statoil both issued a Folia QuickMap system map of the country marking all their locations in 2004, and Statoil supports this with an updated version of the Nordic atlas, no longer spiral bound. However most outlets (including most Shell and Statoil stations) only sell commercial issues, generally by Folia or Cappelens. |
As well as the examples shown above, Jet regularly supplied maps of all of Scandinavia (including Norway) until the early 2000s. Fina and the OK cooperative are also known to have issued maps of Norway; Gulf may have done so, although it only had a relatively small chain. Please let me know if you have any maps from Norol, OK, Gulf or Fina available for sale or trade, or if you have ever seen a map from NOR Bensin.
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Text and layout © Ian Byrne, 2003-7 |
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