Tide Water Oil Company (India) Ltd, a member of the Andrew Yule group, today signed an agreement with Japanese firm JX Nippon Oil and Energy Corporation to form a equal joint venture in India.
"The 50:50 JV, JX Nippon Two Lubricants India, will be responsible for manufacturing, selling, marketing and distributing Eneos brand of lubricants in India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Bhutan and catering to the factory and service fill requirements of the Japanese original equipment manufacturer," Tide Water Chairman Kallol Datta said.
"With entering into an equal JV, we expect to give a greater push in the four-wheeler automotive market in which we had not able to make much headway so far," Tide Water Managing Director R N Ghosal said.
Eneos brand lubricants were already produced by Tide Water through technical cooperation with JX Nippon and have a business of Rs 250 crore in India.
Henceforth, JX Nippon Two Lubricants would be an associate company of Tide Water.
In future, this JV can be used as a vehicle for more business of JX Nippon Oil and Energy Corp into exploration, imports and refining of crude oil, manufacture and sale of petroleum products, including fuels and lubricants and other energy-related activities, Datta said.
JX Nippon Oil GM Naoto Hoya said India was the most important markets for the company but no exact plan had been firmed up for future.
