IndianOil Steps on the Gas
New Delhi   09-Mar-2017

The dip in oil prices was the opportunity the country’s largest refiner-retailer was waiting for. It is making the most of it by striking deals overseas and consolidating its position.

It has occupied the top spot on the Fortune India 500 for the past seven years. Through all the ups and downs in the economy, state-run Indian Oil Corporation (IndianOil) has remained the country’s biggest firm in terms of revenue, though not in terms of profit. This year it has climbed two notches to rank third on the Fortune India list of the 50 most profitable public sector companies.

Over the past three years India's top refiner and retailer has stepped beyond to compete with players on global stage. IndianOil's chairman Mr. B.Ashok's global push is hardly surprising. The $61 billion (Rs3.8 lakh crore) company has been shopping overseas to bolster its crude supplies because oil demand is surging and crude prices have slumped. “Sustained low oil prices since 2014 opened a huge window of opportunity,” says Mr. Ashok. “We decide to bid more aggressively than ever before.”

So when Russia's biggest oil producer, Rosneft, was looking to sell stakes in its oil field in 2014, IndianOil bid as part of a consortium with Oil India and Bharat Petro Resources, a 100% subsidiary of Bharat Petroleum Corporation. It landed a $3.1 billion deal, the largest in India's hydrocarbon's history, giving the consortium a 29.9% stake in the Tass-Yuryakh oilfield for $ 1.1 billion and 23.9% in the Vankor oilfield for $2billion.

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