Bharat Petroleum enters Lankan market

Shirajiv SIRIMANE

One of India’s top five companies Bharat Petroleum India entered the Sri Lankan lubricants market introducing MAK lubricants to the local market at the Colombo Hilton yesterday.

Executive Director, Lubes of Bharat Petroleum, K. K. Guptha said their product range was already in Nepal. “It was due to regulations that we could not enter the Lankan market before,” he said.

“Sri Lanka is an exciting market and we are hoping to be the third in terms of market share in two years,” he said.

With the Government deciding to open the lubricants market already 13 players are in the market with two companies holding 90 per cent of the market. He said the company is also looking at entering the Gulf market and other South Asian countries such as Bangladesh soon.

He said they also have novel products and since they are manufactured in India they would be ideal for the Sri Lankan market. “We hold the edge over some of our competitors due to this,” he said.

Bharat Petroleum also has introduced a credit card system to pay fuel bills and this service too is expected to be available in Sri Lanka soon along with many other services.

Chairman United Motors Lanka Limited Ranjith Fernando said that they have over 800 agents all over Sri Lanka and this would be a major advantage to market this product range.

Bharat Petroleum caters to the fuel needs of around 8000 Industrial customers spread across India. These include industries from the Public and Private Sectors, of the core and non-core segments and various Govt. Establishments, such as Defense, Railways, State Trading Corporations, and State Electricity Boards

The International Trade Division has been in a constant state of learning, growth and preparedness, anticipating policy changes including opening up of product exports/imports, independent crude imports and derivatives for commodity price risk hedging. Within a few years,

BPCL has established itself as a market player to reckon with and has dealt with almost all the major players in the international market.

With the opening of the lubricant market the business is very competitive and it is maintaining an single digit growth.

“We do not want to be a small time player in the market and will look out to capture a major share of the market soon,” he said.

Additional Secretary Ministry of Petroleum, Kanthi Wijetunge said with the decision to open out the lubricant market new players have entered the market.

“There is competition and I am sure that this would lead to high quality products entering the market and the reduction of prices,” she said.