Petrol, the Bulgarian fuel retailer, will try to regain some of the market footprint lost after the recent sale of filling stations to rival Lukoil Bulgaria with the purchase of new outlets, the pursuit of franchise growth and with the restructuring of its retail network, the company has said.

In April 2008, Petrol sold 75 of its most profitable filling stations and a fuel warehouse to Lukoil Bulgaria. The 460 million leva deal marked the end of the company's reign as the nation's biggest fuel retailer. Some of the proceeds will be invested in the purchase and construction of new filling stations.

According to unofficial market data, Lukoil enjoys a 20 per cent share of local fuel sales, followed by Petrol with 16 per cent and Shell and OMV will almost the same positions.

"It is still not possible to say how the proceeds from the Lukoil deal will be distributed, but there is an option to reinvest some of them and to pay a dividend with another portion," Petrol chief financial officer Tsvetan Dimitrov said.

To pare operating costs, Petrol plans to sell a further 105 filling stations.

"We will first sell 105 of our less profitable outlets in smaller population centers and then welcome them back in our network as franchised filling stations," said Ivan Kostadinov, director retail and marketing.

The earmarked outlets are not expected to bring in more than five to eight million euro in sale proceeds, because they operate at break-even, accounting for less than one per cent of  Petrol's total fuel sales.

Petrol, which operates around 470 outlets, is in talks to franchise 20 new filling stations. The management said the company is in a very good shape despite the falling profit margins.

The media recently reported that Russian tycoon Roman Abramovich was eyeing the business of Denis Ershov, one of the majority shareholders in Petrol. Ershov, a Russian national, is a partner with Mitko Sabev in Petrol Holding, the company that owns over 90 per cent of the fuel distributor.

Petrol has forecast domestic fuel sales at 2.5 billion litres in 2008. It expects to account for 18 per cent of retail sales.