New Delhi/Mumbai — Global oil majors BP and Rosneft are eyeing a piece of India’s $117bn retail market for fossil fuels, threatening to shake up government-owned companies that have faced little competition for a decade. BP has already secured licences to open as many as 3,500 fuel stations in the world’s second most-populous nation. Rosneft gained access to about 2,700 pumps through October’s acquisition of Essar Oil, which has plans to add 2,600 more outlets. Along with Reliance Industries and Royal Dutch Shell, the private players will try to chip away at the dominant position of three state-owned enterprises that control 90% of market volume. "Competition is expected to intensify with the entry and expansion of private players and multinational companies," said Rahul Prithiani, a Mumbai-based director at CRISIL, a unit of S&P Global Ratings. Private players and multinational companies are expected to increase their market share though government companies will probably still dom...
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