Antar (company)

Antar is a former French petroleum company, founded by Pechelbronn SAEM in 1927 in Merkwiller-Pechelbronn, Bas-Rhin, Alsace.

However, its origins go back to 1745 when a company was formed to develop the natural oil wells in the vicinity of Merkwiller-Pechelbronn.

[1] The company may have been named after Rimsky-Korsakov's Antar Symphony about the Arab poet and warrior Antarah ibn Shaddad.

[2] In 1976 Elf-ERAP merged with Antar to form the Société National Elf Aquitaine which with over 6,000 outlets became France's second largest petrol retailer.

[3] The Antar name survives on Antargaz, one of France's leading brands of bottled liquefied petroleum gas, which was sold to a unit of Paribas after the TotalFina-Elf merger to satisfy the European Commission's antitrust concerns,[4] and in 2004 became a wholly owned subsidiary of UGI Corporation.