Essar Oil, India’s largest private fuel retailer, is on expansion mode. The company is planning to nearly double its number of petrol pumps to 2,500 by next fiscal year ending March 2011. The company currently has 1,293 petrol pumps. The company produced 280,000 barrels petrol and diesel per day through its refinery at Vadinar in Jamnagar district of Gujarat.

Essar Oil’s fuel from its outlets in Gujarat is priced at par with that of public sector that get Government subsidy for selling petrol and diesel at rates lower than the imported cost.
In the other states, Essar Oil sells its petrol at Rs 2-4.5 a litre higher as compared to other state-run Indian Oil, Hindustan Petroleum and Bharat Petroleum. Diesel is also priced at least a rupee more.

The states where the company has petrol pumps include - Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Orissa and Uttar Pradesh.

With the expansion of petrol pumps network, the company can more efficiently utilize its increased production of petrol and diesel, produced at its Vadinar refinery. Essar is also expanding the non-fuel retail activities at its outlets. The company has plans to dispense CNG and Auto LPG from the outlets in the current year.