The combinations in Europe are part of an industry trend toward consolidating "downstream operations" - refining and marketing.

Some downstream operations in the United States and Britain would probably need to be sold, including refineries and service stations.

During the next years it also acquired the downstream operations of the company in the region.

This was done in order to unify all of their downstream retail operations under the Petro-Canada banner throughout Canada.

This meant that Gulf (EH) had to start supplying its downstream operations in Europe with crude bought on the world market at commercial prices.

The facility includes both the upstream and downstream operations when the fermentation process is scaled up for bacterial polysaccharide product development.

It continues to use the Petro-Canada brand nationwide for downstream retail operations.

Chevron's downstream operations manufacture and sell products such as fuels, lubricants, additives and petrochemicals.

Those companies have relatively bigger "downstream" operations - petrochemicals, refining and marketing - whose profits rise when oil prices drop.

For example, nearly all our downstream operations in Europe have now adopted the same computer systems for their accounting.