Reliance Industry to Dominate Fuel Retail Market

Mumbai: Reliance Industries steps ahead to scale up fuel retail network to control the highway fuel retail market. Reliance Industries is a subsidiary of Reliance Group, which is among India's top private sector business into housing services, over 250 million customers across multiple business segments such as telecommunications, power, financial services, infrastructure, media and entertainment, and healthcare sector.

Private sector companies in energy segment such as RIL (Reliance Industries Limited) and Essar Oil are the major companies serving at international and domestic scale with strongest presence in hydrocarbon value chain from exploration & production to refining and oil retail.

RIL and Essar oil have started expanding their fuel retail business after government deregulated diesel prices in October 2014. RIL has now 1,050 operational fuel retail outlets all over India and other 200 are in advanced stages of being re-commissioned.

According to TechSci Research, the fuel retail business has intense competition because of the re-entry of the private companies and these private companies are attracting customers by providing discounts to acquire part of the market share from the state run oil marketing companies. Increase in fuel pump stations has resulted in lower average in the filling volume at fuel pump stations which has led fuel retailing companies such as Indian Oil, Corporation (IOC) and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation(HPCL) struggling to find new dealers.