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Home / About Finol / Overview

history of finol

Finol Oils was formed over 47 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 ten 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 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 products could be imported in bulk by tankers and then packaged here in Ireland. In 2011 Finol extended its 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). This meeting was when 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 brand awareness. They were now distributing a popular brand of lubricants alongside their own and Fina products.

Between 1999 and 2001, Total Lubricants (now TotalEnergies) 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 then as TotalFinaElf but now known as just Total but still makes Elf branded products. The new company continued its distribution in Ireland through Finol. 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 were 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.

Tricel Acquires Finol

Tricel, a global provider of high-performance solutions for the Water, Environmental, Construction and Materials Industries, acquired Finol Oils in 2015. With similar values and commitments to Finol, the acquisition by Tricel means that Finol can continue to operate in its current form with a commitment to customer service.

Finol offers lubricant products across a wide range of industries, including automotive, commercial, agriculture, construction, marine, motorcycle, industrial, and Food manufacturing. In March 2022, Finol expanded its operations to the the Northern Ireland which allowed us to have a significant presence throughout the Island of Ireland.

Finol isn’t just about selling Lubricant products; they also offer a range of services to their customers and Maintenance & Care products. Finol has grown over the years and now employs over 34 people, with 10 Area sales managers on the road, six delivery vehicles and our very own exhibition unit, which can be seen at many events each year, such as the Autotrade & CV Workshop expo, Irish Skipper show, Ploughing championships, Customer open days, FTMTA Farm machinery show, customer golf day etc. Finol Oils is the authorised distributor of TotalEnergies, Elf, Petro-Canada, Nynas, BlueCat and Actioil in Ireland.