Essar Oil plans to double petrol pumps by next 18 months

Essar Oil, India’s second largest private oil refiner, plans to nearly double its petrol pumps to 4,300 in the next 18 months, said a senior executive from the company. At present, the company has 2,225 petrol pumps, which we will increase to 4,300 in next 18 months. The petrol pump network expansion has been planned on franchise model and will entail an investment of about Rs.2,500 crore by the pump owners. The network was expanded to 1,400 outlets before the expansion was frozen in 2008-09 in view of private retailers being unable to compete with heavily subsidised public sector oil firms. This new expansion move of Essar Oil is an added business opportunity for the signage players engaging in branding and fabrication job in fuel stations/petrol pumps.