KUALA LUMPUR: Petroliam Nasional Bhd (Petronas) is strengthening its business footprint in India as the national oil company foresee higher demands for energy, power and consumer goods by 2030.
"Petronas is on-track to build an effective business ecosystem in India to better serve our customers and stakeholders in this important market,” said Petronas Energy (India) Private Ltd chairman Rizan Ismail in a statement today, adding that Petronas has more that 20 years of strategic partnerships covering six business segments in India.
He was recently on Petronas’ annual official visit to meet customers and partners in Mumbai.
At the sidelines of the official visit, Petronas group president and chief executive officer Tan Sri Wan Zulkiflee Wan Ariffin officiated the opening of the offices of PCM (Chemical) India Private Ltd, Petronas (Energy) India Private Ltd and Petronas Lubricants (India) Private Ltd in New Delhi.
Rizan said Petronas has made significant headways in enhancing its portfolio in India across the value chain n the past two decades, covering crude oil trading, liquefied petroleum gas, petrochemical, lubricants, liquefied natural gas (LNG) and more recently, renewables.
Following the setup of a New Energy business unit, Petronas made its maiden foray into the renewable energy business in April 2019, with the acquisition of Amplus Energy Solutions Pte Ltd (Amplus) – a leading distributed energy solutions provider and developer that serves major customers across India, with a cumulative capacity of 600megawatt in operation and under development.
“The acquisition is in alignment with our aspiration to provide clean energy options that enrich people’s lives. Ultimately, we want to be known in India as a trusted partner and the leading provider of clean, cost-effective and sustainable solutions,” added Rizan.
Recently, Amplus achieved another milestone when it launched a new 75MW open access solar plant in Mirzapur, located in northern India's state of Uttar Pradesh.
It said the plant will offer low carbon energy solutions to industrial and commercial customers in the state and also happens to be the state’s first Open Access plant.
Meanwhile, Petronas’ lubricant business in India saw continued progress with the commencent of commercial operations for the company’s lubricant blending plant in Patalganga, Maharashtra.
With a production capacity of 97,000 mtpa, it enables Petronas to achieve its distribution network expansion to 35,000 outlets from the current 12,000 outlets across the country, by 2021.
In addition, Petronas’s LNG business in the country is expected to expand further as it explores potential opportunities throughout the gas value chain.
It said this reflects the company’s commitment to support the Indian government’s aspiration of having natural gas achieve 15 per cent of the country’s total energy mix by 2030, by co-creating the gas market.
Currently, Petronas is actively tapping into India’s innovation ecosystem by forging strategic collaborations with major India-based companies.
These include working with TATA Consultancy Services to optimise the downstream integrated supply chain, as well as Accenture Ventures in Bengaluru and GEP in Mumbai to develop a centralised system for Petronas digital procurement.
Petronas, through its Universiti Teknologi Petronas (UTP), also signed memoranda of understandings with local institutions such as Amity University; BMS College of Engineering; Central Institute of Technology (CIT) Kokrajhar, and Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT) for collaboration in the areas of academic expertise exchange, research projects cooperation and students exchange.
This marks the company’s commitment to expand collaboration with its Indian counterparts in the energy space and beyond.
“Moving forward, we will ramp up efforts to innovate and customise our product offerings by leveraging on the business synergy shared with our partners in India as well as our integrated experience and expertise in providing innovative solutions,” said Rizan.