Nayara begins fuel retail expansion in India

Russian oil giant Rosneft-led Nayara Energy is expanding its fuel retail network in India, nearly two years after the company acquired Essar Oil's assets, including its fuel retail outlets. Rosneft in August 2017 bought Essar Oil for $12.9 billion and later renamed the company Nayara Energy, which now operates a 20-million-tonnes-a year oil refinery at Vadinar, Gujarat. B. Anand, CEO, Nayara Energy, said: "As the fastest growing pan-India private fuel retail network, we are expanding retail presence at an extensive pace. Today, we have more than 5,000 fuel retail outlets in the country and we plan to increase the network to over 7,000 by 2020.” With this expansion, Nayara will retain its tag of the largest private fuel retailer in the country. Reliance Industries trails Nayara with around 1,372 fuel retail outlets followed by Shell which operates over 120 fuel retail stations in the country and has acquired land for another 150, which are under construction. Shell plans to open 1,200 retail stations across India over the next ten years. RIL along with partner BP Plc plans to jointly set up 2,000 petrol pumps in India over the next few years. Nayara is also investing $850 million to expand its Vadinar refinery to foray into the petrochemical business.