Established player in the lubricant industry, Gulf Oil Lubricants had an eye-catching presence at EXCON. The company’s main focus at the event was to reinforce its brand commitments with the Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs).
Disclosing about his company’s recent moves and focus, Ravi Chawla, Managing Director, Gulf Oil Lubricants India Ltd., said: “We have been a focused player in the construction/infrastructure equipment space. Nearly seven per cent of our sales volume comes from this segment since 2007. In the last 13 years, we have gained trust of over 300 marque customers who are building roads, tunnels and metros like Shapoorji Pallonji, L&T, Oriental India and Dilip Buildcon, to name a few. Apart from this, we have 1,000+ customers in infrastructure mining and fleet businesses operating across 5,000 sites. Now, working with OEMs enables us offer a much better value proposition and helps us produce tailor-made products. While we have a tie-up with Ashok Leyland, we have also been working with Schwing Stetter, Kobelco, and some more well-known brands, offering high-end greases and hydraulic oils that can deliver better value for money.”
At Gulf Oil, it is evident that growing with partners is the best way forward. They have AdBlue required for the BS-IV and above and also have strategic alliance with Whitmore. Their global R&D team is also in India. “We have 40 people working directly on partnering with OEMs. In the segment, we have close to double-digit market share and are looking at more OEMs, within warranty and even outside warranty. We are directly supplying to customers and are doing the logistics ourselves. We have 33 warehouses of our own and have tie-ups with transport companies; we can service anything from one barrel to even a tanker load,” informed Chawla.
For some OEMs, Gulf Oil is also exporting lubricants from India. Gulf Oil has a pan-India network of 320 auto distributors, 30 industrial distributors and over 50,000 retailers. Its main pillars are its plants at Silvassa and Chennai. “Our Silvassa plant has a manufacturing capacity of 90,000 kl per annum and our Chennai plant is currently at 50,000 kl per annum which can be ramped up to around 80,000 kl per annum,” signed off Chawla.