Gulf Oil has been in the oil and lubricants business catering to commercial vehicles and two-wheelers. The company plans to consolidate its presence in infrastructure sector.

Ravi Chawla, Managing Director, Gulf Oil India shares more.

Could you elaborate on your presence in co-branded oils and solutions?
We have been pioneers in long-drain oils with Ashok Leyland since 2006. Before 2006, people were changing commercial vehicle oils at a drain interval of 18,000 km. We brought this oil for a drain interval of 36,000 km and now this is 80,000 km. We have been working closely with OEMs establishing our customer base. Our global R&D is based in India as the global team can offer our products and we are now going to more OEMs to partner with co-branded genuine oils. We are also offering our oils and services to Schwing Stetter, BharatBenz, Kobelco and we have just announced a tie-up with Doosan. We are trying to tie up with more OEMs and looking at working closely with OEMs to offer products which will suit their engines.

How do you look at the market opportunities?
Gulf Oil recognised the importance of the infrastructure sector in a developing country like India and early on, we set up a dedicated team to cater to the needs of this sector. Today, 6-7 per cent of our sales volume comes from this segment. We offer customised products and services at more than 5,000 sites and to more than 1,000 customers who are building roads, highways, metros and houses. Our customer focus and service-oriented approach has helped us grow the business from this sector year on year. However, the last one year has been challenging for all of us due to slow progress of projects and slowdown in overall market. Despite this, we are still gunning for growth. Next year, we hope that the whole situation around us will change with pick up in road construction and infrastructure projects. So, we are positive and surely 2020 will be better than what we see this year.

What are your future plans?
In future, we want to work closely with more OEMs. We plan to focus on ports and mining as they pick up, apart from roads and highways which we believe is in a good shape now. We are also looking at export markets for these segments. We are already exporting to more than 20 countries from India and we want to expand to more countries.

Mahindra BLAZO X range receive BS6 homologation certificate
Mahindra Truck and Bus (MTB) received the BS6 homologation certification for its BLAZO X heavy commercial vehicle range from the Central Institute of Road Transport (CIRT). The Safety & Homologation division of CIRT, a joint initiative of the Ministry of Shipping & Transport and the Association of State Road Transport Undertakings (ASRTU) offers Certification and Homologation of Motor Vehicles as per Central Motor Vehicle 1989.

MTB has always been at the forefront with innovations and has got the best-in-class technologies, leveraging the same tried and trusted mPOWER CRDe engine. The company has incorporated SCR, DOC, DPF and EGR technologies in the very same engine, so that when the trucks become BS6 compliant, the part level changes are kept to minimal. Hence customers can focus on their business without worrying about BS6.

Mahindra has used a mid-NOx strategy with mild Exhaust Gas Recirculation (EGR) to improve emissions consistency and reduce AdBlue or DEF consumption. The new BS6 range will be supported by a wide service and spares network - over 153 3S dealership set-ups, 200 authorised service centres, a wide spares network of retail outlets, 34 strategically located Parts Plazas and three service corridors namely, Kashmir-Kanyakumari, Delhi-Mumbai and Kolkata-Chennai.