Oil marketing companies — Indian Oil Corporation (IOCL), Bharat Petroleum Corporation (BPCL) and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation (HPCL) are not the only ones going all out to woo customers to boost sales. Gas utility companies, Mumbai-based Mahanagar Gas Limited and New Delhi-based Indraprastha Gas Limited, are also adding frills to their services to attract customers.
For instance, in Mumbai, Mahanagar Gas is offering an online service where if a customer does not wish to queue up at a gas station, the company would send someone to pick their cars and return the same after filling gas.
“50% of Mumbai’s CNG stations are heavily underutilised. Between 10 pm and 6 am, such stations hardly attract any CNG consumer to fill in gas in their vehicles, which has emerged as a major concern for us. Despite this, we will continue to add on close to 15 CNG stations every year to make sure that the CNG users do not starve shortages of CNG in Mumbai,” said Rajeev Mathur, managing director, MGL.
Thus capacity remains under-utilised. MGL has a compression capacity of 26 lakh kilo grams per day, but the company is compressing only 13 lakh kilo grams per day. “There are enough CNG stations across Mumbai today but half of them are closed because there is no demand at night,” added Mathur.
According to him, it is the natural gas that’s present contribution to energy mix basket of India, which is around 7% now, will go up to 20% in next few years due to its increasing demand factor.
In Delhi, IGL is offering differential pricing with CNG being Rs 1.50 per kilo gram cheaper during the night. Compression capacity available with gas stations across IGL is 68 lakh kg per day while it is able to sell 24-25 lakh kg per day.
