The Hindu : Shell, RIL, Essar to set up petrol stations

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Dec 03, 2003

Business

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Shell, RIL, Essar to set up petrol stations

NEW DELHI DEC. 2. Petrol and diesel retailing is set to see a major change next year when private and multinational companies will begin selling petrol and diesel.

Reliance Industries, Essar Oil and Royal Dutch/Shell will break the public sector monopoly in petro-retailing next year. These companies have said they would set up worldclass petrol stations.

While RIL will commission 500 petrol stations by March end, the world's third largest oil firm, Royal Dutch/Shell, will begin retailing in the second half of 2004. Essar, which has already set up three sample petrol pumps in Maharashtra and Gujarat, would commission at least 600 more outlets in 2004.

"Reliance has informed us that they will set up 500 petrol pumps by March 2004,'' the Union Petroleum Secretary, B. K. Chaturvedi, said on the sidelines of a conference here.

The company has been granted a licence to set up 5,849 petrol stations. The Chairman of Shell India, Vikram S. Mehta, said the first tranche of the 2,000 retail outlets the firm had received authorisation would come up in the second half of 2004 and demanded that public sector distribution infrastructure be leased to the private sector. — PTI

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