Essar plans to grow its network of petrol pumps in the United Kingdom to 400 in three years to capture about 10 per cent of the market share, reports The Economic Times. The company, the only Indian firm to own a refinery in Europe, opened its first UK fuel station in November last year and has added six more services stations since then. "We plan to rapidly scale up the retail network to 400 sites over the next three years," Essar Oil UK Executive Chairman Naresh K Nayyar said.
UK has some 8,593 petrol pumps. Of these 5,613 sites are owned by dealers and Essar is trying to win over some of them. "We have the advantage of owing a refinery in UK as well. So we are telling customers that the fuel they get is directly from the company's refinery," said S B Prasad, Essar Oil UK's chief commercial officer. The company's fuel retail venture in UK will be mainly a dealer-owned-dealer-operate (DODO) model. But the company could have a small number of company-owned-dealer-operated (CODO) outlets.
Nayyar said the response from both the dealers and consumers has been "very positive and we are looking to build on this initial momentum to drive rapid growth of our network". Prasad said the company would in the next few months have about 15 sites or petrol pumps and by the end of the year.
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