Petroleum Ministry has directed state-run fuel retailers to rework their marketing strategy to counter aggressive gains by private operators, especially Reliance Industries, in sales of petrol and diesel.Petroleum Secretary S.C. Tripathi asked oil marketing companies Indian Oil Corp, Bharat Petroleum, Hindustan Petroleum and IBP to think out of the box, not just add retail outlets, to protect their turf.The concern has been raised due to a ‘dismal performance’ by the four in the first half of current fiscal year. ‘‘The performance of public sector oil undertakings has been particularly disheartening during April-October 2005 though competition has only just started,’’ says a ministry analysis.The OMCs lost significant market share and volumes in diesel, most of which was lapped up by Reliance Industries. The four lost nearly 1.72 million tonnes of diesel sales in six months while Reliance registered a gain of 1.33 million.The other gainers were state-run Numaligarh Refineries Ltd and ONGC-MRPL. In petrol, the report says, Reliance cornered nearly twice the incremental sales generated by the four OMCs collectively. Reliance sold 125,200 tonnes more of petrol in April-October whereas the four OMCs witnessed a sales increase of 69,300 tonnes in the same period. ‘‘Clearly OMCs need to seriously reconsider their marketing and sales strategies for retail products which, it appears, is not increasing just by adding new retail pump outlets,’’ said the ministry paper. What is bothering the government or the owner of the OMCs is that there is price ceiling on both products and that the new entrants had got marketing rights only in May 2002.
