Essar Oil looks to double petrol pumps to 4,300 in 18 months

The retail network expansion planned is on franchise model and will entail an investment of about Rs 2,500 crore by the pump owners.

“We have 2,225 petrol pumps now which we will increase to 4,300 in next 18 months,” Essar Oil’s CEO Retail Madhur Taneja said. The retail network expansion planned is on franchise model and will entail an investment of about Rs 2,500 crore by the pump owners.“We were the first private company to enter fuel retailing business when we in 2003 opened our first petrol station,” he said.

The network was expanded to 1,400 outlets before the expansion was frozen in 2008-09 in view of private retailers being unable to compete with heavily subsidised public sector oil firms.

After diesel price was deregulated or freed from government control in October 2014, the expansion was restarted and network has reached 2,225 now, he said.