India’s public sector oil marketing companies — IOC, BPCL and HPCL — have decided to set up close to 80,000 fuel retail outlets in the next three years as part of the biggest-ever expansion of their fuel retail network. Industry officials, however, feel they may be able to set up just around 15,000 since the strikeout rate has been quite high and a cumbersome land acquisition and approval process makes things harder.
“Given the past success rate, we expect to give Letters of Intent (LoI) for about 14,000-15,000 locations by the end of the entire process. The focus is also on Tier-II and Tier-III cities as well as rural areas, since metro cities are mostly saturated,” said an official at a government-owned refiner. The low success rate could be due to the cumbersome land approval process, he noted, adding that more often than not, land is not approved, and even if it is, many cases end up having to face litigation.
