GP Petroleums Ltd. and Gulf Oil Lubricants India Ltd. both announced resumption of partial operations at their lubricant blending plants in India, after receiving permission from local authorities to operate under guidelines in accordance with Covid-19 safety precautions.
Local authorities and various state governments in India issued directives in March to shut down factories for a period of time to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
GP Petroleums said in an April 29 news release that it resumed operations at its lubricant blending plant in Vasai, India, and would prioritize supply to essential services such as sugar and power generation industries to ensure their manufacturing plants run smoothly.
“The company plans to operate the 80,000 [metric tons per year] Vasai lubricant plant at required capacity as per the permissions received and will be managing daily functioning as per government guidelines with a 50 percent headcount, as most of the workers reside near the plant,” GP said in an April 29 news release.
According to an April 24 ETEnergy World report, GP Petroleums planned to operate the Vasai plant at 30 percent capacity once permissions were received.
The company noted in its news release that India’s government gave permission to certain industries to open certain sections of their plants, with certain precautions, standard operating procedures and with minimum workforce.
“We have the necessary clearance from the local authorities and upon resumption, our priority is to cater to the sectors which fall under essential services,” GP Petroleums Ltd. CEO Prashanth Achar said. “We will prioritize the dispatch of 200,000 liters to Western Coalfields Ltd., which is one of our biggest and oldest customers.”
The company said it received a special request from Western Coalfields to supply them with the industrial lubricants to help it continue operations. GP noted that as a special case, it had already supplied a partial quantity of the product to Western Coalfields’ three plant locations: Yavatml, Wani and Chandrapur in Maharashtra.
Gulf Oil Lubricants India ltd. also received permissions from local authorities to resume partial operations at its blending plant in Silvassa with minimum manpower, according to a letter the company submitted on April 27 to the National Stock Exchange of India. The company indicated it was starting up production primarily to supply customers in the essential categories as designated by India’s government. The permission was valid until the national lockdown date of May 3, and the company had not posted an update by Lube Report’s deadline. The third phase of India’s national lockdown is scheduled to start May 4, according to the government’s web portal.
Gulf also said it received permission to operate its lubricant plant in Chennai until May 3, but was not operating it as of the letter’s April 27 date.