HPCL plans to become a global hydrocarbon sector player

The Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL) plans to become a global player in the hydrocarbon sector by venturing into other countries with focus on Saarc Nations, the company chairman and managing director M B Lal said on Monday.

The company is already persuing some proposals in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal regarding improvement of refinery, power development, crude oil refining and marketing of petroleum products, he said.

HPCL had tied up for a number of projects with other countries as joint ventures and planned to construct Asia's largest underground liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) storage facility at Vishakhapatnam in collaboration with a French firm, Lal said at a press conference here.

The Rs 350 crore project envisages construction of 60,000 million tonne capacity storage, 600 ft under the ground level at the sea coast. It would be more safe and reduce the transportation cost considerably, Lal said, adding that the project is likely to be commissioned by 2006.

He said the Mundra (Kachh)-Delhi pipeline and Vishakhapatnam-Hyderabad pipeline project for petroleum products were also on the anvil and it would help in streamlining the supply of petroleum projects and reducing the transportation cost considerably.

HPCL increased its volume of sales from 13.92 million tonne to 14.35 million tonne, turnover from Rs 37,684 crore to Rs 40,655 crore, reduced the interest liability from Rs 125 crore to Rs 39 crore and increased profits from Rs 788 crore to Rs 1537 crore during the past one year, Lal said.

The company has 5,000 retail outlets and 1,945 LPG agencies even as it plans to open more outlets during the current year.

He said that 'customer' was the main focus of HPCL and it had taken several steps to provide quality services.

He said that 20 more mobile testing labs would be set up for spot checking of samples of petroleum at various points to ensure that unadulterated products were made available.