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Norway’s largest oil company, Statoil ASA, has submitted an application for an initial public offering (IPO) of shares in its fuel and retail units, including its marine fuels, lubricants and aviation divisions.

In a regulatory notice, Statoil said the application was necessary for the IPO to take place during the fourth quarter of 2010, adding that it would proceeed with the IPO 'if market conditions allow'.

“The plan is to list in the fourth quarter, and there are no changes to that,” Chief Executive Officer Helge Lund said at an oil industry conference in Oslo yesterday.

“It’s not a rush sale, so we’ll do this if we believe we can get the value that we see as reasonable,” Lund added.

The company's plan to push ahead with the sale of its fuel and retail assets comes at a time when the industry trend has been to focus on more lucrative upsteam operations.

Statoil joins a list of other companies to have sold large chunks of their fuel and retail operations in order to focus on finding and producing gas and oil.

In March 2010, Shell New Zealand agreed to sell its distribution and retail businesses and a 17.1% interest in the New Zealand Refining Company.

In May of this year, bunker supply firm Aegean Marine Petroleum Network Inc. entered into an agreement to acquire the assets and operations of the Shell Las Palmas terminal in the Canary Islands.

Meanwhile, BP sold its U.S. retail network in 2007 and Exxon Mobil began doing the same a year later.