Neste

Neste Oyj (international name: Neste Corporation; former names Neste Oil Corporation and Fortum Oil and Gas Oy) is an oil refining and marketing company located in Espoo, Finland. It produces, refines and markets oil products, provides engineering services, and licenses production technologies. Neste has operations in 14 countries. Neste shares are listed on the NASDAQ OMX Helsinki Stock Exchange. As of 2022, the Prime Minister's Office of Finland is the largest shareholder in the company, owning 35.91% of shares. In 2021, Neste was the third largest company in Finland in terms of revenue. The name "Neste" means "liquid" in Finnish. Neste was founded in 1948 as the State petrol company of Finland with the purpose to ensure the availability of refined fuels in Finland. The company's headquarters was established in Espoo. At the time, there was no oil industry or related expertise in Finland, and the company had to start operations from scratch. In 1955, Uolevi Raade became the company's CEO. In 1957, the first oil refinery in Finland was built at Naantali using US technology. The Porvoo refinery was built in 1965 in Sköldvik (Kilpilahti). Originally, much of the oil refined was of Soviet origin, though North Sea oil was used after the collapse of the USSR. In the 1960s and 1970s, Neste became the largest company in Finland. In addition to oil refining, Neste began exploring and producing oil and gas and entered into the chemical industry. During the Cold War, Finland imported goods from the Soviet Union in order to retain exporting privileges to the country. Towards this end, Finland imported Russian oil, which was refined by Neste. In 1971, Neste acquired half of Kesko-owned Kesoil. In the 1970s, Neste's fleet constituted one third of Finland's merchant fleet in terms of its load capacity (1.1 million deadweight tons). Neste Shipping's largest tankers were the 114,000-dwt sister vessels Tiiskeri (1969) and Enskeri (1970), and the 259,000-dwt vessels Jaarli, Jatuli and Jurmo, all of which were built at the beginning of the decade and bought second-hand in 1979.