Government-owned oil refiner Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) has announced a mega foray into oil exploration and production (E&P) business and has earmarked a budget of Rs 1,000-1,500 crore.‘‘The company will look into a mix of exposure of exploration, development and production with a budget of Rs 1,000-1,500 crore over the next five years,’’ BPCL CMD S. Behuria said here. HPCL dealers to become partners MUMBAI: Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd, in a serious bid to take on Reliance and Essar, has reworked its retail strategy focusing on its dealers which would be treated as business partners. HPCL released its ‘‘project organisation transformation retail strategy’’ here on Monday during the launch of a two-day interface with dealers HPCL with 485 dealers, 127 contractors and 112 transporters, proposes to implement agreed service standards and sales volume, ink MoU with dealers to place on record the commitment of both the parties, carry out continuous evaluation of performance and launch a system of measurement of customer satisfaction index (CSI). ‘‘This is a process to achieve the paradigm shift,’’ sources said. (ENS) Addressing shareholders at the annual general meeting, he said it has become necessary for BPCL to explore other avenues for securing crude by entering the upstream sector in order to have reasonable supply security, hedging of price risks and benefits of an integrated supply chain in the volatile oil market.Behuria said it had also become imperative to enter the gas business to maintain its share in the energy market in view of the recent trend of increasing displacement of liquid fuels by natural gas as an environment friendly product.To meet stiff competition in the retail sector, Behuria said the retail network would be increased by about 700 new sites this year even as a number of resitements have been planned to correct the unprofitable allocations prior to deregulation.Behuria said the capacity of the Mumbai refinery was being increased to 12 million metric tonnes per annum by October and would also produce base oils. The Mumbai-Manmad pipeline was being extended to Indore and commissioned shortly, he added. He said BPCL was also in the process of putting up a new pipeline along with Numaligarh Refinery Ltd and Oil India Ltd from Numaligarh to Siliguri.In addition, the company plans to enter into contracts on a ton-to-ton exchange and purchase sale basis with other players in the country, he added.
