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State-run Bharat Petroleum Corporation on Monday said it will acquire a 40 per cent equity stake in Tiki Tar and Shell India for Rs 85 crore in cash, as it seeks to expand its presence in India's fast-growing value-added bitumen market. The acquisition, which has received approval from the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM), is expected to be completed within 90 days, Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) said in a regulatory filing. The transaction is not a related-party deal. Incorporated in October 2019, Tiki Tar and Shell India Pvt Ltd (TTSIPL) manufactures and markets bitumen and bituminous products used in highways and airport runways. Its portfolio includes VG Grade Bitumen, Polymer Modified Bitumen (PMB), Crumb Rubber Modified Bitumen (CRMB), and emulsions. The company also exports to Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh. BPCL said the investment aligns with its strategy to tap growing demand for value-added bitumen driven by India's infrastructure ...
Every time India has faced a major crisis - whether devastating floods, a once-in-a-century pandemic or the latest conflict in West Asia that threatened global oil supplies - it has been the country's state-run oil companies that have quietly kept fuel flowing. For decades, India's public sector oil marketing companies (OMCs) have often been criticised for low returns, government intervention in fuel pricing and bloated operations. They have twice been put on the block for privatisation, with plans to sell Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd (BPCL) and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL) gathering momentum in 2002 before being halted by a Supreme Court ruling and again in 2020, before the process was abandoned after failing to attract enough bids. Yet every national emergency has reinforced why governments have been reluctant to loosen their grip on companies that control the country's energy lifeline, analysts and industry officials said. When unprecedented floods submerged Chennai in