Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) - Company Profile

Bharat Petroleum – Company Profile

Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) is one of the largest state-owned oil and gas company in India, with Fortune Global 500 rank of 287 (2008). Its corporate office is located at Ballard Estate, Mumbai.  As the name suggests, its interests are in downstream petroleum sector. It is involved in the refining and retailing of petroleum products. Bharat Petroleum is considered to be a pioneer in Indian petroleum industry with various path-breaking initiatives such as Pure for Sure campaign, Petro card, Fleet card etc. BPCL's growth post-nationalisation (in 1976) has been phenomenal. One of the single digit Indian representatives in the Fortune 500 & Forbes 2000 listings, BPCL is often referred to as an “MNC in PSU garb”. It is considered a pioneer in marketing initiatives, and employs “Best in Class” practices.

Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited
Type	State-owned enterprise Public
Industry	Oil and Gas
Founded	1976
Headquarters	Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
Key people	Radhakrishnan (Chairman & MD)
Products	Oil Petroleum Natural gas Petrochemical Fuel Lubricant
Revenue	123,900.65 crore (US$ 28.13 billion) (2010)
Net income	1,719.98 crore (US$ 390.44 million) (2010)
Total assets	$13.762 billion (2010)
Total equity	$3.150 billion (2010)
Employees	14,729 (2007)
Website	BharatPetroleum.com

Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL), a public sector enterprise, is one of the only three petroleum companies in India that have integrated facilities for refining and marketing. BPCL was formed by the Government of India in 1977, as a part of nationalisation of oil companies. BPCL took over refining operations of Burmah Shell Refining Limited and marketing /distribution operations of Burmah Shell Oil and Storage Distribution Company. BPCL is one of India’s three dominant refining and marketing companies. It has a refining capacity of 6mtpa and product sales of 17.5mt, implying a market share of 20.55%, second largest in India.

The company has been gaining market share consistently over the last few years from rival HPCL. BPCL introduced LPG as a cooking fuel to the Indian home. Bharat Petroleum, now is India’s second largest oil company in terms of market share, and has a turnover exceeding Rs. 256billion. Today the company produces a diverse range of products, from Petrochemicals and Solvents to aircraft fuel and speciality lubricants and markets them through 4400 Petrol Stations, 960 Kerosene dealers and 1180 LPG distributors, besides supplying fuel directly to hundreds of industries, and several international and domestic airlines. Bharat Oman Refineries, incorporated as a joint venture between the Oman Oil Company and BPCL. This joint venture is setting up a refinery scheduled to be completed by Dec.’99. In 1995-96, approval has been received by BPCL for putting up new LPG bottling plants at Goa, Beghusarai, Meerut, Dewas, Jhansi, Ferozabad, Burdwan, Raiganj, Gwalior, Bina, Buldhana, Tanjore and Vellore. BPCL has joint venture partnership with Numaligarh Refineries Ltd. (NRL), Shell International Petroleum Company, Shell Overseas Investments, The Netherlands, and Gujarat Gas Company. Bharat Petroleum is the only Petroleum Marketing Company from India that’s listed in the Forbes International 800 Rankings.

History

The 1860s saw vast industrial development. A lot of petroleum refineries came up. An important player in the South Asian market then was the Burmah Oil Company Ltd. Though incorporated in Scotland in 1886, the company grew out of the enterprises of the Rangoon Oil Company, which had been formed in 1871 to refine crude oil produced from primitive hand dug wells in Upper Burma.

The search for oil in India began in 1886, when Mr. Goodenough of McKillop Stewart Companydrilled a well near Jaypore in upper Assam and struck oil. In 1889, the Assam Railway and Trading Company (ARTC) struck oil at Digboi marking the beginning of oil production in India.

While discoveries were made and industries expanded, John D Rockefeller together with his business associates acquired control of numerous refineries and pipelines to later form the giant Standard Oil Trust. The largest rivals of Standard Oil - Royal Dutch, Shell, Rothschilds - came together to form a single organisation: Asiatic Petroleum Company to market petroleum products in South Asia.

In 1928, Asiatic Petroleum (India) joined hands with Burmah Oil Company - an active producer, refiner and distributor of petroleum products, particularly in Indian and Burmese markets. This alliance led to the formation of Burmah-Shell Oil Storage and Distributing Company of India Limited. A pioneer in more ways than one, Burmah Shell began its operations with import and marketing of Kerosene. This was imported in bulk and transported in 4 gallon and 1 gallon tins through rail, road and country craft all over India. With motor cars, came canned Petrol, followed by service stations. In the 1930s, retail sales points were built with driveways set back from the road; service stations began to appear and became accepted as a part of road development. After the war Burmah Shell established efficient and up-to-date service and filling stations to give the customers the highest possible standard of service facilities.

From Burmah Shell to Bharat Petroleum

On 24 January 1976, the Burmah Shell Group of Companies was taken over by the Government of India to form Bharat Refineries Limited. On 1 August 1977, it was renamed Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited. It was also the first refinery to process newly found indigenous crude Bombay High, in the country. Today Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited has got three refineries at Mumbai, Kochi and Numaligarh. They are also on the verge of commissioning another refinery at Bina in Madhya Pradesh in 2010.

Products

Bharat Petroleum produces a diverse range of products, from petrochemicals and solvents to aircraft fuel and speciality lubricants and markets them through its wide network of Petrol Stations, Kerosene Dealers, LPG Distributors, Lube Shoppes, besides supplying fuel directly to hundreds of industries, and several international and domestic airlines.

Refineries

BPCL has refineries at Mumbai and Kochi (Kochi Refineries) with a capacity of 12 Million Metric Tonnes (MMT) and 9.5 MMTPA respectively for refining crude oil. BPCL's subsidiary at Numaligarh has a capacity of 3 MMT. One more refinery i.e. Bina Refinery is coming up and is expected to get commissioned in the current financial year. It would operate at 6 MMTPA for the first year.

Brand ambassador

Mahendra Singh Dhoni signed on as the Brand Ambassador for BPCL in 2006. Narain Karthikeyan is one other Brand Ambassador for BPCL.

International rankings

1. BPCL is a Fortune Global 500 company as per the ranking of 2008. It was ranked at position 287. It was ranked at position 325 as per the ranking of 2007.
2. BPCL was featured on the Forbes Global 2000 list for 2008 at position 967
3. BPCL is seventh most valued brand in India according to in an annual survey conducted by Brand Finance and The Economic Times in 2010.

Technological Edge

Bharat Petroleum has always been on the forefront of harnessing technology initiatives for BPCL has been on forefront in harnessing technology. maximising efficiency and achieving greater customer satisfaction.

Bharat Petroleum is the first Public Sector Oil Company to implement Enterprisewide Resource Planning (ERP) solutions - SAP. The implementation project known as ENTRANS (Enterprisewide Transformation) has been awarded the 'SAP Star Implementation Award', with Bharat Petroleum having the distinction of executing the largest and the most ambitious SAP project in India. The challenge of SAP implementation was to ensure that all the integrated elements (of the complex multi-modular integrated solutions that impact the entire workflow of the organisation) work seamlessly across the length and breadth of the country, including the remote locations. Providing online connectivity in these remote locations, given the full-fledged IT network infrastructure, was in itself a daunting task.

Bharat Petroleum is reaping the benefits of the integrated system in many areas of its operations. The early gains of implementation are in the areas of tracking customer-receivables, monitoring credit-management, inventory management, besides easing the operations in a large number of areas.

Furthermore, Bharat Petroleum has also set up one of the biggest 'Centres of Excellence' in Asia to provide online support to the end users and also work towards continuous improvement in business processes and handle product upgrades and new generation products.

With SAP as the IT backbone, Bharat Petroleum plans to take advantage of the Internet based capabilities along the entire value chain with a Customer Relationship Management solution. A large data warehouse project has also been implemented, which facilitates access to real-time accurate information on key performance indicators at all Bharat Petroleum locations. This enables the management to take strategic and business decisions, thus ensuring value-added services, better customer satisfaction and enhanced shareholder value.

People Above Oil

Over the years, Bharat Petroleum continues to meet the challenges of the rapidly changing environment, leading to changes in the marketing of products and services. In all these changes, only one factor has remained constant and has been the source of Bharat Petroleum's strength and inspiration for any future innovations - Bharat Petroleum's People. The feeling of ownership has facilitated all employees to understand the complexity of the market and needs of the customers, and respond to these needs with innovative initiatives and offerings.

For Bharat Petroleum, commitment of its employees is a critical resource. Fully realising that only a happy employee will put his best foot forward with the customers, Bharat Petroleum has taken many steps to make the organisation a great place to work. In a survey conducted by Hewitt Associates for the January 2001 issue of Business Today magazine to identify the best employers, Bharat Petroleum was ranked among the top ten employers in India. The objective of the study was to find out which companies had really charged the emotional and intellectual energy of their employees. The other companies who were selected were Infosys, Hewlett-Packard, P and G, ICICI, Hughes, LG, HLL, Compaq and Asian Paints.

Opportunities

BPCL offers rewarding career to Engineers, MBA’s, PhD’s and CA’s in various functions like Refining, Marketing, R&D, Engineering & Projects, Finance, HR, Corporate Affairs, etc. The recruitment at entry level (as Officer Trainees /Probationary Officers) is normally undertaken through campus interviews at reputed Engineering colleges, RECs, Premier Management Institutes Sometimes BPCL recruit through Press Advertisements also.

The trainees are given extensive on the job training for one year during which they are exposed to the various facets of the Organization. Depending upon the business requirement, recruitment in a few cases is made in mid-management level.

Contact

The recruitment at entry level (as Officer Trainees /Probationary Officers) is normally undertaken through campus interviews.

Website: http://www.bharatpetroleum.com/careers.html