Neste Brand Guidelines: Finland’s 1948 State Refiner That Dropped “Oil” From Its Name

A state oil company built from nothing.

Neste was founded in 1948 as Finland’s state oil company. English Wikipedia says its purpose was to ensure the availability of refined fuels in Finland, and the company’s own timeline puts it the same way: “founded to secure Finland’s oil supply.” Finnish Wikipedia adds that the country then had no oil industry or expertise of its own, so everything had to be started from scratch; the company’s home was Espoo, next to Helsinki, and it was state-owned from the start. The name is the Finnish word for “liquid,” English Wikipedia notes.

The refineries came over the next two decades. The first, at Naantali on the south-west coast, opened in 1957 using American technology, and a larger one at Porvoo, at Sköldvik (Kilpilahti) east of Helsinki, followed in 1965, according to both Wikipedias. Finnish Wikipedia says Neste grew into Finland’s largest company in the 1960s and 1970s, refining crude imported from the Soviet Union under the two countries’ bilateral trade, and that in the 1970s its tankers made up about a third of the Finnish merchant fleet by deadweight. In 1976 it put up Finland’s first skyscraper, an 83.6-metre headquarters tower at Keilaniemi in Espoo.

Fuel retail came later. Neste opened its own service stations in 1983, and English Wikipedia says it held a legal import monopoly until the Finnish market was liberalised in the 1990s. In 1991 it took control of the Finnoil and Kesoil chains, and the Union stations became Neste stations in 1992. From 1994 until October 2020 Neste was title sponsor of the rally in Central Finland that is a round of the World Rally Championship, run for 26 years as the Neste Rally Finland. The company was listed on the Helsinki Stock Exchange in November 1995.

From NEXBTL to a new name.

In 1998 Neste merged with the power company Imatran Voima to form Fortum, and its oil business became a Fortum subsidiary. In spring 2005 that business was demerged as Neste Oil and listed in Helsinki again in June 2005, according to both Wikipedias.

The renewable business grew out of a refining process. Neste says it filed its first patent application for NEXBTL, a technology for making renewable diesel, in 1996. English Wikipedia says the first NEXBTL plant came on stream at Porvoo in 2007 and a second in 2009; Finnish Wikipedia dates the start of a plant in Singapore, then described as the world’s largest renewable diesel plant, to November 2010, and a plant of similar size in Rotterdam to 2011. The Singapore plant’s use of palm oil drew opposition from Greenpeace, Finnish Wikipedia records, and Neste committed to using only responsibly produced palm oil. English Wikipedia says that about 80 percent of Neste’s renewable feedstock is waste and residue fats and oils, such as used cooking fat and animal fat from the food industry.

The name followed the business. On 1 April 2015 the annual general meeting decided to drop “Oil,” and the company became Neste Corporation — Neste Oyj in Finnish and Neste Abp in Swedish — on 1 June 2015. Its chief executive, Matti Lievonen, said in the announcement that the word “Oil,” referring to fossil crude, no longer gave “a correct overall picture of the company.” The stations kept the old name for another year: a March 2016 release said the Neste Oil chain would become Neste in Finland, the Baltic countries and Russia between April and October 2016. In 2019, Finnish Wikipedia says, Neste sold its stations in the St Petersburg region to Tatneft.

How refiners present themselves.

Refiners and fuel marketers sit between the oil field and the driver, and their identities have to work at very different scales. The same name may appear on a refinery gate, the side of a tanker truck, a forecourt canopy, a pump display, a lubricant bottle and a page of an investor presentation, so marks tend to be simple shapes and short words that survive distance, weather and night lighting.

Much of the public image is still built on the forecourt. Station brands carry the colour and the logo, while the company behind them may run several names at once: Phillips 66, for example, says it sells fuel in the United States under the Phillips 66, Conoco and 76 brands and in Britain under JET. Payment cards, loyalty schemes and apps extend the forecourt to the phone; Phillips 66 promotes one app, Fuel Forward, across its three US brands.

Lubricants give refiners a second, shelf-sized identity. Bottles and drums are often sold under their own names rather than the corporate one, such as Indian Oil’s Servo or Phillips 66’s Kendall, and they sit beside competitors in shops and workshops, where a pack has to be recognised quickly.

The newest part of the story is told in announcements and reports. Companies present renewable diesel, sustainable aviation fuel and electric-vehicle charging through press releases, sustainability pages and investor material; Phillips 66 describes converting a California refinery to renewable fuels, and Indian Oil has added charging points at its fuel stations. Safety pages, refinery photographs lit at night and annual reports complete a register that is usually more technical than the forecourt. The guides in this group set out what can be checked about each company: its origins, owners, plants and brands.

One word, one brand.

The renaming reached the products too. In June 2016 Neste replaced its “NEXBTL” product names with a “Neste Renewable” family — NEXBTL Renewable Diesel became Neste Renewable Diesel — and kept NEXBTL only as the name of the technology. Its communications chief said the aim was to communicate about “one Neste.” The website now sells Neste MY Renewable Diesel and Neste MY Sustainable Aviation Fuel, and calls the company “the world’s leading producer of renewable diesel and sustainable aviation fuel (SAF).” The 2015 releases said the visual look would stay the same, with the word “Oil” simply taken out of the logo.

Its renewable refineries are in Finland, the Netherlands and Singapore. Since September 2022 it has also held half of Martinez Renewables, a joint venture with Marathon Petroleum to convert Marathon’s refinery in Martinez, California, to renewable diesel; Marathon operates the plant and the partners split its output, Inspectioneering reported. Neste says an expansion of its Rotterdam refinery is due to be completed in 2027, and that its long-term plan is to turn the Porvoo oil refinery gradually into a renewable and circular refining hub. In September 2020 it opened negotiations on closing the Naantali refinery, both Wikipedias record. On the forecourt, Neste says it runs a network of nearly 1,000 fuel stations in Finland and the Baltics, adding services such as EV charging. The Finnish state remains the largest shareholder: Finnish Wikipedia lists the Prime Minister’s Office with 44.22 percent of shares in March 2026.

For a design guide, Neste shows how a state refiner can rename itself around a new business while keeping its look. Compare Marathon, the fuel brand of Neste’s partner at Martinez, and Shell, another European fuel retailer. For this guide we use a spruce green and a Baltic blue with a sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Neste’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.