BPCL to venture into gas biz: CMD

Chennai: Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) plans to venture into gas business and diversify resources for source of fuels as part of its five-year plan, a top official said on Thursday.

"BPCL under the next five-year plan has set a target of Rs one lakh crore to be spent for all its expansion activities which includes marketing, refining etc...," BPCL chairman and managing director D Rajkumar told reporters here.

"We want our market cap to reach Rs 2.50 lakh crore. That is 2.5 times increase of what it is now. We have also planned to venture into gas business. That will be our next value chain," he said.

To a query, he said, the company has taken up 'an experiment' to import crude oil from the United States under its 'diversification' exercise.

"We have imported two cargos of crude (from US) as an experiment. That is one (cargo) with crude with high sulphur and another (cargo of) crude with low sulphur. One million barrels each. This is basically with a view to diversify resources that are available to us", he said.

"We really want to ensure that the prices are kept within the limits. For that it is necessary we source it from the right sources. We have been looking at various sources. Whatever we import, the crude will be refined in our existing refiners within the existing configuration", he said.

"Right now, what we are trying to do is to diversify our sources in an efficient manner." he said.

Talking about the company's financial performance, he said BPCL clocked Rs 2.42 lakh crore revenue with a profit after tax at Rs 8,339 crore.

"We hold market share of 24 per cent and our market cap is more than Rs one lakh crore".

To a query on expansion of outlets, he said the company currently has 14,000 outlets across the country.

 "In Tamil Nadu, we have about 4,524 outlets. Depending upon demand we will expand".