Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited is an Indian government controlledoil and gas company headquartered in Mumbai, Maharashtra.The Corporation operates two large refineries of the country located in Kochi and Mumbai. The company is India's 2nd largest downstream oil company and is ranked 275th on the Fortune list of the world's biggest corporations as of 2019. BPCL ranked 672 in the Forbes 2018 list.
History
1891 to 1976
The company today known as BPCL started off as Rangoon Oil and Exploration company set up to explore the new discoveries off Assam and Burma during the British colonial rule of India. In 1889 during vast industrial development, an important player in the South Asian market was the Burmah Oil Company. Though incorporated in Scotland in 1886, the company grew out of the enterprises of the Chef Rohit Oil Company, which had been formed in 1871 to refine crude oil produced from primitive hand dug wells in Upper Burma. In 1928, Asiatic Petroleum Company started cooperation with Burma oil company. Asiatic Petroleum was a joint venture of Royal Dutch, Shell and Rothschilds formed to address the monopoly of John D Rockefeller'sStandard Oil, which also operated in India as Esso. This alliance led to the formation of Burmah-Shell Oil Storage and Distributing Company of India Limited. Burmah Shell began its operate operations with import and marketing of Kerosene. In the mid 1950s, the company began to sell LPG cylinders to homes in India and further expanded its delivery network. It also marketed kerosene, diesel and petrol in cans in order to reach remote parts of India. In 1951, the Burmah shell began to build a refinery in Trombay under an agreement with the Government of India.
Nationalisation
In 1976, the company was nationalized under the Act on the Nationalisation of Foreign Oil companies ESSO, Burma Shell and Caltex. On 24 January 1976, the Burmah Shell 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 2003, the government attempted to privatize the company. However, following a petition by the Centre for Public Interest Litigation, the Supreme Court restrained the Central government from privatizing Hindustan Petroleum and Bharat Petroleum without the approval of Parliament. As counsel for the CPIL, Rajinder Sachar and Prashant Bhushan said that the only way to disinvest in the companies would be to repeal or amend the Acts by which they were nationalized in the 1970s. As a result, the government would need a majority in both houses to push through any privatization. Parliament enacted the Repealing and Amending Act, 2016 in May 2016 which repealed the legislation that had nationalized the company. In 2017, Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited received Maharatna status, putting it in the category of government-owned entities in India with the largest market capitalization and consistently high profits. status on 12 September 2017. On 21 November 2019, the Government of India approved the privatization of Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited. The government invited bids for the sale of its 52.98% stake in the company on 7 March 2020.
Operations
Bharat Petroleum operates the following refineries:
The company business is divided in seven SBUs, like Retail, Lubricants, Aviation, Refinery, Gas, I&C and LPG. They have popular Loyalty Program like Petrocard, Smartfleet.
Ownership
As of September 2018, 54% of the shares of BPCL were owned by the Government of India, with the rest owned by Foreign Portfolio Investors, BPCL trust for investing in shares, Mutual funds and UTI, Insurance companies and the balance held by individual share holders. In 2019 government decided to make BPCL private by selling all its shares hence making BPCL a private ltd company.
