Petronas Lubricants International (PLI), the global lubricants manufacturing and marketing arm of the national oil corporation of Malaysia, Petronas, has decided to set-up a lubricant blending plant at the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC), Patalganga, about 75 km from Mumbai, at a cost of Rs 335 crore ($50 million).
The plant, to be constructed on 25 acres of industrial land and will have an estimated production output of 110 million litres of lubricants, is expected to commence operations by end-2017, said a company statement.
It added that PLI Group CEO Amir Hamzah Azizan, inaugurated the groundbreaking ceremony at the site of the new plant along with Giuseppe Pedretti, PLI regional head of Asia, and MP Singh, Petronas Lubricants (India) (PLIPL) CEO.
“PLI has very aggressive ambitions to be amongst the world’s top lubricants player by 2019.”
“India is without exception a very important market for us here in Asia and we are confident of the potential ahead of us. Keeping this in mind, we have embarked on a solid growth plan to accelerate our business in India, starting with investments into the new plant which is equipped with world class lubricants blending facilities and equipment, highly automated production line, and increased storage tanks.
“We have also embarked on a new route-to-market approach that will see us transform the way we do business with our distributors and retailers in the high-street business,” said Mr Pedretti, commenting on the new plant.
Mr Singh believes that in India, the growing economy and emerging middle class will continue to contribute to a robust automotive market growth.
“With a market size of 2.5 billion litres and lubricants demand projected to grow at 2.3 per cent CAGR, India is the world’s third largest lubricant market behind the US and China.”
“PLIPL is now entering the next wave of growth in line with our aspiration. We need to be innovative, differentiated and focussed in increasing our market share, especially in the highly competitive high street market.”
