The US-based fast food giant McDonald's and petroleum major Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) have initiated talks for setting up fast-food outlets at select petrol pumps.
A C Sen, general manager-retail, BPCL, said, the corporation has floated tenders and is in the process of negotiating with other bidders too.
McDonald's has already opened an outlet at a BPCL petrol pump in Mathura. This has been running for some time now. "The outlet was opened on an experimental basis and a lot will depend on the success of this project," Sen said.
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The fast-food outlets will require large open spaces for parking cars since these will essentially be "drive-in" outlets.
The revenue sharing mechanism and other details are yet to be finalised for such outlets.
Besides fast-food, BPCL also has plans to sell groceries, that too at a discount, at some 200 odd outlets all over the country. For this purpose, BPCL plans to go on its own and will source grocery from the local market. A pilot project in Bangalore involving five outlets has already showed signs of success. "Things are expected to fall in place in a few months," informed Sen.
Meanwhile, BPCL also has plans to sell automobile-grade liquid petroleum gas (LPG) at another 200 outlets all over the country. At present, it is selling LPG at two of its outlets on an experimental basis. Its LPG expansion plan at all its targetted outlets may fructify in another 6-8 months.
The petroleum major, however, will be selling LPG only to automobiles fitted with ISI marked conversion kits.
Recently, BPCL ran a promotional contest in collaboration with two-wheeler manufacturer LML Ltd at its "Pure for Sure" pumps for 25 days. Prizes were given away by officials of both BPCL and LML at a function organised in Kolkata today.
On the network front, BPCL will be raising the number of its outlets from 4,600 to 5,000 in 2003. On the financial front, the company expects to report a Rs 800 crore net profit and a turnover of Rs 50,000 crore this fiscal. It registered a Rs 45,000 crore turnover and Rs 715 crore net profit in 2000-01.