The website has quoted Joe Barrett, director of Petrogas, as saying that the company expects its business in the UK to be bigger than that in Ireland where it has 50 sites under the Applegreen chain. It plans to buy 100 petrol stations in the UK in the next five years.

Mr Barrett has said that though the company is concentrating on expanding around its current UK sites in the north of London and south of Birmingham, it would move further to buy the right property.