Petrol Company Road maps from Portugal

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Road maps from Portugal

Brief History

Until it joined the EU in the 1980s, Portugal was often seen as being outside the European mainstream, isolated by Spain and looking more to its African colonies and Brazil than to the rest of Europe. This isolation is to some extent reflected in its oil industry; the main players were initially just Standard Oil (later becoming Mobil, not Esso) which started in the country in 1896, and Shell, which operated there from 1919. With the country under the control of the Salazar dictatorship, it is no surprise that national oil companies were encouraged in the 1930s. The first of these was SONAP (Soc. Nacional de Petróleos) established by private interests in 1933, and followed in July 1938 by state-controlled SACOR, initially set up to build a refinery near Lisbon.

Sacor was entitled to a 50% market share, but never took more than about a third in its independent existence. After the war, Mobil, Shell, Sacor & Sonap were joined by BP in 1954 (although its roots go back to 1929, in the form of the US company Atlantic Refining). These five brands operated a perfect oligopoly for the next 20 years, until the Portuguese revolution of 1974 which led to the nationalisation of much of the industry in 1975. Petrogal was formed in the following year from Sacor, Sonap, Cidla (which distributed bottled gas) and Petrosul (which owned a refinery at Sines). For the next 15 years, Petrogal's marketing subsidiary - Galp - dominated the market:
Service Stations in Portugal: 1970, 1989 and 2003
In the late 1980s the market began to liberalise, with multinationals Repsol, Esso (1988), Total (1988) and Elf (1989) starting up small chains, as well as a local brand called Anka. In 1992, Petrogal was partly privatised, with shares being acquired by major Portuguese utilities as well as Total. New service stations were constructed throughout the decade by the new entrants, with older street-side pumps closing. Cepsa (part owned by Elf) built a substantial chain, and Agip also entered the fray. In 1999-2000 Petrogal was reorganised into a new holding company, Galp Energia, with one third of the shares sold to ENI, the parent of Agip. Total no longer had any involvement with Galp, although in mid-2002 it gained 111 former Galp stations in a swap exchange for assets in Spain. Most recently, in 2004, Shell sold its outlets to Repsol allowing the Spanish company to take third rank in the country.

The market is now rounded off by unbranded stations, a few small brands (such as Cipol), a small number of hypermarkets and two chains using the AVIA co-operative's colours.

Maps

No maps issued by oil companies are known from before the Second World War.

1948 Mobiloil map 2 of Portugal

The oldest known oil company maps of Portugal are this series from 1948 by Mobiloil (not Mobilgas). They divided Portugal into four sections North to South (left) with only the final section dated. Right is a May 1960 map of Portugal produced in English and French for intrepid tourists! Only 20,000 copies were printed by Bertrand (Irmãos) Limitada of this rare map which marked Mobil outlets and had inset maps for Porto and Lisbon. The reverse cover was in French with a photo of a lady in Portuguese national costume (shown on Mobil page).

1960 Mobil map of Portugal

Shell maps of Portugal, like BP below, are most commonly found in the touring service version on a single sheet with Spain. However national maps with insets for Porto and Lisbon can be found, generally at 1:700,000 using local cartography. The two examples here date from 1959 and 1965 credit Papelaria Fernandes and Litografica de Portugal respectively, but are essentially the same map - although only the earlier one marks Shell Touring station locations. The 1959 print run of 20,000 copies had doubled by 1965.

1959 Shell map of Portugal

1965 Shell map of Portugal

1962 BP atlas of Portugal 1964 BP map of Portugal ca1975 BP map of Portugal 1988 BP map of Portugal

1958 Map of Porto, Portugal
BP has been a regular issuer of maps in Portugal. The earliest example shown here (left) is a 1958 city plan of Porto (Oporto) produced by Lito de Portugal. Only 5,000 copies were printed, with the same quantity of a plan of Lisboa (Lisbon). Neither carried a scale; the maps opened out to just 37.5x25cm, four times the cover size, but the reverse side included a list of main hotels, cinemas, museums and other sights. Each city map marked just four BP stations.

Next in age is a tall format atlas booklet consisting of just four double pages dividing the country North to South. Two years later, BP's Portuguese operation had fallen in line with the international style, covering the country on a single sheet map, and the grey covered map from the mid 1970s was very similar. All three maps were at 1:600,000 and marked principal BP stations, using local cartography and printing (Lito de Portugal, Pedroso da Costa and Orbis respectively. They were also notable for typically small print runs - just 20,000 copies for the atlas and 30,000 for each of the sheet maps. The final maps dates from 1988 and was a joint production with the commercial cartographer Turinta, still at the same scale.

Advert for Galp from rear cover of 1980 ACP map

Portuguese maps of any generation are hard to find, and none are known from Sonap or Galp. The three examples here are from left:

a 1970 Sacor map, printed by Litho de Portugal, Lisboa, which locates Sacor petrol stations and marine fuelling points (courtesy Richard Horwitz);

an undated Sonap map of Mozambique (courtesy Jon Roma);

an advert for Galp from the rear cover of a 1980 Automóvel Club de Portugal (ACP) map.

In recent years Repsol has sold a spiral bound Guía Repsol Portugal - which is described as being a comprehensive tourist and culinary guide containing road maps at a scale of 1:300,000 (including the Azores and Madeira) and street plans of the cities of Lisbon, Oporto, Coimbra and Funchal, as well as detailed information about other places of cultural interest. However these are rarely seen in Britain, and all attempts to buy one from the Repsol website for delivery to the UK have failed. If anyone can let me have a copy, then please send me an e-mail!

As noted above, the most commonly found maps of Portugal are those that cover the entire Iberian peninsula. These were produced for touring service operations as Spain lacked commercial brands of petrol until 1990. Examples are shown on the Spain page: companies known to have produced such maps include Aral, BP, Caltex, Esso, Fina, Shell and the tiny Belgian firm Pollet.