MRPL considers opening fuel retail network

Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals (MRPL), a subsidiary of Oil and Natural Gas Corp. (ONGC), will revisit its fuel retail business plans as India has decontrolled petrol prices. “This is the right time for MRPL to start rolling a retail network. It has a license for 500 retail fuel outlets and has three operational retail outlets,” Chairman R.S. Sharma said. 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 Corp., Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum. MRPL, which operates a 9.69-million-ton refinery at Mangalore in Karnataka, is expanding its crude refining capacity to 15 million tons a year. (July 2, 2010)