Bharat Petroleum Essay

Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited is a Fortune 500, Navratna Oil Marketing Public Sector Undertaking. I have been associated with BPCL for the last 8 years and have served in the front end positions as Area Manager (Industrial Products) in different parts of the country.

We shall start with a brief overview of the history of Petroleum both in the International and Indian context, we shall trace the origin of Bharat Petroleum in its earlier avatar as Burma Shell, we shall discuss the Nationalization of the Oil Companies in the 1970’s then the period under the Government Umbrella till 1998 and finally the period post 1998 when the Administered Pricing Mechanism (APM) was dismantled. The discussion post nationalization till dismantlement of

On 24th January 1976, the Burmah Shell Group of Companies was taken over by the Government of India to form Bharat Refineries Limited. On 1st August 1977, it was renamed Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited. It was also the first refinery to process newly found indigenous crude (Bombay High), in the country.

Prior to the nationalization of the Oil Companies, India was the battle ground of the Multinational Oil Companies like Caltex, Esso and Burmah Shell. Nationalization of the Oil companies changed the entire spectrum of this industry.

Post nationalization the Players left in the industry were Indian Oil, a company which was started by the government of India in 1960s to challenge the monopoly of the existing Multi National Companies, Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited which was the reincarnation of the erstwhile Burmah Shell and Hindustan Petroleum which was formed by the merger of Caltex and

Bunkering is the Business of Fuelling Ships. The Fuel they require is Furnace Oil, a residual product of Crude Distillation. The company is investing to create Infrastructure at various ports to enable it to deliver bunker to these vessels.

Thus I see a pattern in these actions to see that the impact of the competition from Reliance and Others is minimized.

All these changes that have taken place in the last 10 years or are taking place currently are due to the initial shock that the company faced when the first wave of Private Marketers entered and the changes are to ensure that the losses are minimized when the next wave comes post deregulation of Diesel Prices. The company has braced itself to the eventuality that the Market Share will come down when the decontrol of Diesel takes place but wants to ensure that the sustainability is least impacted.

Thus I conclude that the last ten years have been a period of the flurry of activities in my company. The company has taken conscious steps to change and make itself battle ready for the competitive days