Jio-BP, Nayara, Shell unable to regain pre-2022 market share
Private sector fuel retailers Jio-BP, Rosneft-backed Nayara Energy and Shell haven't yet been able to fully regain the market share they gave up in 2022 after the beginning of the Russia-Ukraine war that triggered a turmoil in the global oil market and made domestic fuel sales loss making for some time.
The three private sector retailers had a combined market share of 8.7% in petrol sales in February, lower than 10% in the same month of 2022, according to industry data. For diesel, their share was 9.3% as against 10.8% two years earlier. Their share, however, is up from last year's 7.4% in petrol and 4.9% in diesel. The market share for all three private companies is lower than their respective shares two years ago in both petrol and diesel.
Nayara Energy leads the private players, accounting for more than half of their combined sales. Nayara also operates the largest network of petrol pumps among private retailers. It has 6,590 pumps while Jio-BP, the joint venture of Reliance Industries and BP, operates 1,700 pumps, according to the oil ministry data. Shell has just 340 fuel stations and less than 1% share in domestic sales of petrol and diesel.
Private retailers operate 8,630 pumps, about 10% of the nation's 89,000 pumps. State-run companies operate the balance. In two years, private players have added just about 350 fuel stations while state companies built 7,000 new fuel stations.
Private players have been slow to expand, which is one reason contributing to their slower market share growth, said an industry
