Elf Aquitaine was a French oil company which merged with TotalFina to form TotalFinaElf. The new company changed its name to Total in 2003. Elf has been maintained as a major brand of Total. Elf Aquitaine's heritage is rooted among three French oil companies: Régie Autonome des Pétroles , Société Nationale des Pétroles d'Aquitaine , and Bureau de Recherches de Pétroles . These companies were formed to exploit the discovery of a gas field in Saint-Marcet in the Aquitaine region of south-western France. In December 1965 RAP and BRP were merged to form Entreprise de... Recherches et d'Activités Pétrolières . ERAP had SNPA, Union Générale des Pétroles , and Union Industrielle des Pétroles as subsidiaries. The resulting company achieved vertical integration, owning assets in all phases of the petrol business from exploration and production to the filling station. On April 28, 1967 the company's disparate brands and products were unified under the Elf brand, Essence et Lubrifiants de France . Elf was the first company to pioneer a total synthetic racing oil.
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