MRPL to roll out retail network

Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals (MRPL), a subsidiary of Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), will revisit its fuel retail business plans as the government has decontrolled petrol prices.

“This is the right time for MRPL to start rolling a retail network. It has a licence for 500 retail fuel outlets and has three operation retail outlets,” company Chairman R S Sharma said here today. Sharma, who is also ONGC chairman, said MRPL’s board had put retail plans on freeze since the government had made it clear that it would only compensate the losses incurred by three oil marketing companies (OMCs) — Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum.

Last week, the government decontrolled prices of petrol and announced that a decontrol in diesel will follow. So far, the government used to determine prices of petrol, even if it meant losses for the public sector OMCs. The loss was made up by government bonds and discounts by government oil producing companies.

MRPL, which operates a 9.69-million-tonne refinery at Mangalore in Karnataka, is expanding its crude refining capacity to 15 million tonnes a year.

MRPL renews supply agreement with Mauritius
MRPL today renewed its agreement to supply petroleum products to State Trading Corporation of Mauritius for three years starting August 2010.

MRPL will annually supply 1.1 million tonnes of refined products valued at $660 million. The products, comprising diesel, ATF, petrol and furnace oil, will be supplied to Mauritius and the total value of this deal at current prices is $2 billion, MRPL Managing Director U K Basu said.

Speaking at the function, Showkuttaly Soodhum, the minister for commerce & industries, Mauritius said, the Mauritius government is looking at investments in the sector by Indian companies. “We are seeking technical help from India to set up a refinery hub. We are immediately going to set up a technical committee in Mauritius to consider setting up an equal joint venture between India and Mauritius,” he said.