India: Fuel retailer seeks to automate 4,200 fuel stations
One of India's major fuel operators wants to automate its network of 4,200 gas stations as the competition between state oil companies and private operators hardens.
The energy company, unknown so far, has opened a global tender for the multi-million dollar project consisting on the automation of its 4,200 fuel stations in India.
“This is a multi-million dollar project of this company to automate all 4,200 retail outlets located length and breadth of country. This is an excellent opportunity for UK based companies in process automisation to explore this mega project,” reads the company advert.
Automation of the forecourt is currently one of the biggest trends in the market. Saving costs, increased flexibility and overall operational improvement are some of the reasons why operators across the global are betting on automation, digitalization and cloud solutions.
India´s fuel retailing market is in full expansion mode with both private and state-owned fuel retailers stepping up competition. All three major state oil companies – Indian Oil Corp., Bharat Petroleum Corp. and Hindustan Petroleum Corp. – will be opening between 800 and 1,500 fuel stations each this year.
The oil companies have also invested in improving their automation features. For example, Bharat Petroleum had automated 8,000 of its 13,000 odd gas stations as of April this year.
Meanwhile, private operators like Reliance or Essar Oil are making major investments to increase their market share. Essar Oil just announced plans to open 2,075 fuel stations in the next 18 months, bringing its entire network in India to around 4,300 sites.
As revealed by the latest tender, India´s fuel operators are not only investing in expanding their networks but also in modernizing and automating forecourts.
