The story
1940s to 1960s
Theodor Weisser established the business in 1947 by purchasing Marquard & Bahls, a company that had traded in cereals and lubricants since its founding in 1913. At the time of the takeover, the company existed only as a shell. Founding a new company had not been possible for Weisser at the time, as the British occupying forces did not permit the founding of new companies in the energy sector.
Weisser began trading in heating oil and lubricants, and gradually expanded the business activities in the following years. In the mid-1950s, the company also entered the tank storage business, and in the 1960s focused particularly on expanding its activities abroad. Its trading subsidiary Mabanaft played an important role in developing the spot market in Rotterdam.
1970s to 1990s
In 1971, Weisser's eldest son Hans took over the management. In the following year, Marquard & Bahls' tank storage facilities were consolidated into the subsidiary Oiltanking.
After purchasing 25.1% of Stumm AG shares from a shareholder pool consisting of family members and shares from the Otto-Wolff Group in 1974, Marquard & Bahls acquired all shares of Stumm in 1977. Marquard & Bahls converted the public limited company back into a GmbH and acted as a holding company.
In January 1987, Stumm GmbH was renamed Marquard & Bahls GmbH. In the 1990s, a new service-station organization was established, which has since started operating under the brand Oil!. Beyond this, the company had been active in the sale of heating oil to end-consumers since the 1980s; these activities were bundled under the Petronord umbrella in 1996.
In 1999, Marquard & Bahls entered the aviation fuelling business, and further expanded this line of business, which operated as Skytanking, in the following years.
2000s and 2010s
Since 2002, Marquard & Bahls has been active in the field of renewable energies and invested in a wood-fired power plant. As a by-product of the plant, wood pellets were produced, which were sold by GEE Energy, a subsidiary of Marquard & Bahls.
Among the activities in the field of renewable energy was, in addition to the trading of biofuels, which was part of Mabanaft until 2018, also biogas. The Mabagas subsidiary realized biogas projects based on organic waste from 2008 to 2018.
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In 2008 and 2011, Marquard & Bahls acquired shares in Newsco International Energy Services companies through its subsidiary Oiltanking. By 2014, Marquard & Bahls had increased its holdings to secure a majority stake in Newsco. However, in March 2017, Marquard & Bahls decided to sell all of these shares again.
In May 2012, Oiltanking acquired United Bulk Terminals in the US. This division had been directly allocated to Marquard & Bahls since the end of 2014 until September 2019, when Marquard & Bahls sold United Bulk Terminals.
In August 2019, Marquard & Bahls also sold its stake in Natgas AG, Potsdam, to the former co-shareholder Friedrich Scharr KG, Stuttgart. To expand further into the renewable energy & chemical sector, Marquard & Bahls invested in the Norwegian company Nordic Blue Crude in December 2019.
The 2020s
In May 2021, an investment was made in the Swiss company Brusa ICS. In February 2022, Marquard & Bahls acquired additional shares in the company. At the end of 2021, in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, the subsidiary Skytanking was sold.
In February 2022, Oiltanking and Mabanaft were targeted by cyberattacks. The attacks lasted for several weeks and prompted prosecutorial investigations into the offence of extortion.
From Wikipedia’s article on Marquard & Bahls, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.6