Mobile fuel dispensing units – market demands moving up

Kolkata- Indian market is moving towards delivering the fuel door to door as there is more demand from the various customers. One of the Pune based start-up, Repos Energy India Pvt Ltd.¹, has the application for easy ordering, paying and delivery, now they cover 65 Indian cities.

In 2017, the government made a major breakthrough when the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas announced the commencement of home delivery of diesel and petrol. The move was aimed at cutting down long queues at fuel stations and increasing digital transactions in the sector.

Currently petroleum refinery and supplier Indian Oil Corporation Limited and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited are carrying our mobile fuel delivery on pilot projects across India.

On the technology side, Neogi Technologies and Research Private Limited, a manufacturer of liquid, fuel dispenser and fuel pump accessories, has The High Accuracy Fuel Metering and Dispensing System (HAFMDS) developed for delivering fuel at the door step. The unit is capable of delivering a variety of fuels such as diesel, kerosene, bio-diesel, lubricating oil, furnace oil and light diesel oil. it is can be operated by the engine of the truck or by its battery power.

Samir Neogi, CEO, Neogi Technologies and Research Private Limited said “India is a vast agro-based country with a diverse geographical region, which are not fully serviced for their fuel management needs like diesel for pumps, tractors, power tillers etc. Also, there are a large number of country boats in inland waters & rivers for which diesel is required at the locations. Thus, we believe there’s a huge opportunity for these mobile fuel dispensing units in the country,” he said.

Commenting on the doorstep delivery of diesel during the lockdown, Aditi Bhosale Walunj, co-founder at Repos Energy, said, “The daily requirement of the hospitals ranges anywhere between 500 litres and 2,000 litres depending on the consumption and requirement. We are reaching out to over a dozen major hospitals in Pune including the National Information Centre, Sahyadri, Jehangir, Aditya-Birla hospital among them."

¹Repos Energy India Pvt Ltd is a start-up backed by the fund of chairman of Tata group Mr. Ratan Tata, epos Energy which was launched in June 2017, was one of the first to venture into the fuel delivery model, changing the way energy is distributed through doorstep diesel delivery. The company charges .25 paisa to Rs 2 extra per litre. A delivery below the quantity of 500 litres, however, is charged according to a system-based algorithm, which is a function of delivery quantity, delivery distance and time. In 2019, its annual turnover is USD 0.27mn.