Indian Oil Corporation Limited, the market leader in the oil and gas distribution in India, plans to consolidate its presence in Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Chandigarh.
Talking to Business Standard on the sidelines of the Oil and Gas Conservation Fortnight 2010, the General Manager (marketing division) of the company, R K Arora, said in Chandigarh that they would add 40 more oil stations and 30 LPG distributors by the end of the March 2010.
“We have identified the locations and the channel partners/dealers and waiting for the approvals from the different government departments,” he said.
He added that expansion of the retail outlets would be done in the hinterland due to burgeoning demand of oil and gas in the interiors.
According to Arora, the demand from the agriculture sector was very high in Punjab due to increasing use of the diesel-run generators to support the tubewells in the wake of inadequate power supply. This results in substantial demand of diesel in Punjab.
“In the month of January 2010 the total volume of oil sold in the region was 141, 361 kilo litre and out of this 111, 000 kilo litre was sold in Punjab only,” he said.
He apprised that the total volume of oil and gas sold by the company from April ‘09 to December ‘09 was 3361, 000 tonne and they registered a growth of 11 per cent over the previous year.
According to Arora, the surge in sales of automobiles in Punjab would definitely put more pressure on the oil companies and the commissioning of Bhatinda refinery would help the players to streamline the distribution in Punjab and surrounding states.
