India’s state-owned oil marketing company Hindustan Petroleum Corp. Ltd. has hired a consultant to advise on a spin-off of its lubricants business to unlock its value.
The company has engaged an international consultant to develop an exhaustive marketing strategy and lay down the long-term roadmap for the lubes business, including carving out the business as a separate company, HPCL said in its latest earnings release.
HPCL, India’s largest lubricant marketer, which sells more than 350 grades of lubricants, specialties and greases, didn’t disclose the name of the consultant.
The company has made substantial progress on its plan to unlock the value in lubricants business by on-boarding the consultant, HPCL Chairman and Managing Director Pushp Kumar Joshi said during a conference call with investors on Jan. 25.
The consultant will advise the Mumbai-based company on the execution strategy, he added.
“In the next eight to 10 weeks, we would have a very firm execution plan in place for unlocking the value on the lubricants business,” Joshi said.
HPCL, which operates six lube blending plants, supplies its products through a network of 21,186 retail outlets, many of them in the bazaar market, according to its latest annual report. In late 2022, HPCL announced its distributors will deliver automotive and industrial grade lubricants to customers’ doorsteps throughout India via a partnership with FuelBuddy, a fuel delivery service based on a mobile phone app.
The company sold a total of 626,560 metric tons of lubes and greases in the fiscal year that ended March 31, 2023, a 15% increase from 545,200 tons in the prior fiscal year, its annual report showed.
HPCL also owns India’s largest lube refinery in Mumbai, producing lube oil base stocks with a capacity of 480,000 tons per year, according to its website.
In March last year, HPCL signed an agreement with a unit of United States-based Chevron Corp. to manufacture and sell its lubricant products in India, the companies announced.