Corporate Grapevine

Published: Mar 15, 2022
Updated: Mar 15, 2022

BPCL: Next on the block

The Indian government has started the initial ground work to divest Bharat Petroleum Corporation (BPCL) to prospective buyers. Just before the sale, BPCL plans to amalgamate its wholly owned subsidiaries, Bharat Oman Refineries (BORL) and Bharat Gas Resources (BGRL), into the company to attract good bids. Apart from Vedanta, the Adani group is expected to make a bid for the company, if corporate grapevine is any guide

BORL owns and operates the Bina refinery with an annual capacity of 7.8 million metric tons in Madhya Pradesh. All three of BPCL’s refineries will be under one entity after the amalgamation, which analysts expect will improve efficiency in terms of crude procurement, inventory management and hedging mechanisms.

BGRL, formed in June 2018, holds BPCL’s interests in the areas where it intends to build city-gas distribution (CGD) networks. BGRL has interests in 13 areas at various stages of development, some of which would start contributing to earnings over the next four to five years. Considering that most of the disinvestments have resulted in cronies becoming bigger than before, one can expect a similar fate for BPCL too.