History of Finol

Finol Oils formed over 40 years ago in 1977, by PJ O’Loughlin & John Purcell. They won a bid for the distribution business of Petrofina for the Fina range of Lubricants. By 1986 after working in the company for nearly 10 years Dominick Purcell was in a position to buy PJ O’Loughlin & John Purcell out when they decided to retire. At this stage the company changed the way it operated and worked on setting up a distribution network and also started selling its own brand of lubricants under the Finol brand, whilst continuing to sell the Fina brand. Over the next few years the company started to grow and by 1990 the decision was made to move to larger premises in Crumlin where the company still operates today. These larger premises allowed the company to hold a larger quantity of bulk stock, which meant more product could be imported in bulk by tankers and then packaged here in Ireland. In 2011 Finol extended their premises through the acquirement of an adjoining warehouse.

In 1995 Dominick Purcell had an incidental meeting with a member of Elf Oil UK in Manchester whilst en route to Fina in Belgium, (There was no Ryanair in those days either).   The result of this meeting was that Finol Oils was appointed a distributor for Elf Lubricants; this hugely increased the range that Finol could offer its customers. Elf’s partnership with Renault and its connection to Formula One helped Finol increase its brands awareness as they were now distributing a popular brand of lubricants alongside their own and Fina products.

Between 1999 and 2001 Total Lubricants went on a merger spree when it first bought Fina and then went on to make a hostile bid for Elf, the new company known than as TotalFinaElf but now known as just Total but still make Elf branded products. The new company continued its distribution in Ireland through Finol and since then Finol Oils run by Dominick Purcell & assisted by Sean Holland has grown from strength to strength with over 2000 products on offer to its customers.

Whilst looking for a product to solve the problems that customers with diesel engines where having after the extreme winter temperatures of 2009/2010, Dominick & Sean discovered Actioil the complete Diesel treatment and after discussions with Actioil a Swiss company, Finol secured the distribution rights of Actioil for Ireland & the UK and began distributing in Ireland in 2011.