Door-to-door diesel delivery could soon expand in the Indian market, as state-owned oil marketing companies (OMCs), Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL) and Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) are planning to team up with start-ups to provide the service.
State-owned OMCs have called for expressions of interest (EoIs) from the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) recognized start-ups to apply for door-to-door delivery service using mobile petrol pumps.
Through the agreements with start-ups, OMCs aspire to push the number of mobile petrol pumps in the country to grow by four to five times. The present number of mobile petrol pumps in the country are 200-300 pumps after the deal with start-ups, this number is expected to grow up to 1,000-1,500 pumps.
In 2017, Petrol and Natural Gas Minister Dharmendra Pradhan pitched the idea of starting door-to-door delivery of motor fuels. State-owned HPCL launched pilot projects to deliver diesel for telecom towers, institutional installations, and diesel generator sets.
Later in 2018, Indian Oil Corporation started its first door-to-door delivery of diesel in Pune and Chennai. All OMCs are in plans to expand the service of mobile petrol deliver to 500 mobile petrol pumps across the country by FY20-end.
The government set-up a task force on door-to-door delivery of oils. The Petroleum and Explosives Safety Organization (PESO) under which the task force was set-up met six times to formulate a framework for the delivery service.
Not just government companies, private players such as Reliance Industries are also tapping into the mobile pumps business. The company already started delivering packaged diesel containers in more than 260 sites.
“To take the fuel delivery to customer’s door-step, RIL is working on next-generation business models. Over 260 sites are serving diesel in packaged containers to the non-transport sector in general and telecom sector in particular,” said the company in its annual report published earlier in August 2019.
At present many start-ups are involved in running diesel delivery businesses in the country. Pepfuels, FuelBuddy, MyPetrolPump, Repos Energy, and Humsafar are some involved in the business.
The companies who are involved in this business are called FuelEnts, the market is expected to help the start-ups generate up to Rs 2,000 crores in the next 12-18 months. The move by the government can further help in increasing diesel demand in the country.
MyPetrolPump, a Bengaluru-based consumer brand under ANB fuel private limited started its delivery services of diesel back in 2016. The company claims to deliver 5 million liters of fuel in 2018-19 and plans to expand its operations in other cities.
Another start-up Humsafar offers door-to-door delivery services for apartment complexes, schools, hotels, malls, restaurants, construction sites, and other diesel buyers in the Delhi-NCR region. The app claims to deliver the order within eight hours and minimum delivery is of 100 liters per order.