Russian oil firm Rosneft-owned Essar Oil Ltd (EOL) is planning to raise ₹3,000 crore in debt funding to meet its financial requirements, said two people aware of the company’s plans.
“The debt will be raised through non-convertible debentures through a private placement in one or more tranches. This would be to meet the company’s existing and future financial requirements,” said the first person on the condition of anonymity.
Essar Oil did not reply to an email query sent on 28 May.
Last August, Essar Oil was acquired by Rosneft and its partners in a $12.9-billion deal. While Rosneft owns 49.13% in Essar Oil, global commodity trading and logistics giant Trafigura and Russia’s UCP Investment Group jointly hold another 49.13%.Subsequently in April, Essar Oil had sought to change its corporate identity to Nayara Energy Ltd, which is under process.
“The proposed corporate identity for EOL is in line with the firm’s strategy to create a new brand and identity, reflecting the new ownership and its ethos,” it said in a note on 26 April. “The rebranding will enable positioning the firm to compete and succeed in the new era and meet customer needs in the fastest-growing energy market in the world.”
Essar Oil operates a 20 million-tonne per annum oil refinery at Vadinar in Gujarat and 4,473 petrol pumps across the country. Essar Oil has had plans to scale up its retail network to 5,000.
According to the ministry of petroleum and natural gas, private fuel retailers such as Essar Oil, Reliance Industries (RIL) and Shell have more than doubled their share in the domestic market since FY15. In diesel sales, private retailers have a 8.2% market share in FY18, compared with 3.1% in FY16, while for petrol it has increased to 6.8% in FY18 from 3.5% in FY16.
The government had deregulated petrol in June 2010 and diesel in October 2014.
RIL, which is the only listed private fuel retailer, has 1,400 outlets, while Shell operates 108 fuel stations. RIL holds licences for 5,000 fuel outlets and plans to expand its network.
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This story was first published on livemint.com.
