Castrol India Limited recently held a groundbreaking ceremony to expand its Silvassa lubricant blending plant, which currently produces around 80 million litres per year.

The investment of INR 140 crore (USD19.8 million), which will be spread over the next two years, will expand the capacity of the Silvassa plant by 50%.

In a recent interview with a local publication, The Hindu, Omer Dormen, managing director of Castrol India Limited, said that the Indian lubricants market is about 2.4 billion litres in market size, of which half is industrial lubricants. Castrol India’s share of the retail market is about 20%, he said.

For the full year of 2018, Castrol India reported that revenues rose 9% to INR3,904 crore (USD545.5 million), from INR3,584 crore (USD500.8 million) in 2017. This full-year figure is based on comparative figures net of excise duty. Previous reported figure included excise duty, which was discontinued effective 1 July 2017, upon implementation of the goods and services tax in India.

Castrol India’s profit for the full year increased 2.4% at INR708 crore (USD96.4 million) compared to the same period in the previous year.

Dormen said that “2018 marked another year of solid performance as we recorded consistent growth for the third consecutive year. Continuous investment in our people, brands, distribution network, customer acquisition and advocacy efforts has helped us deliver on all our strategic priorities enabling us to grow ahead of the market, especially in retail, and to register profitable volume growth.

“We were able to protect our margins through appropriate pricing interventions and rigorous cost management despite an extremely volatile input cost environment. We introduced new and differentiated products in our portfolio that have contributed significantly to our volume growth during the year.”