We are looking forward to forge new partnerships in areas where emerging growth is going to come from.
Ravi Chawla, Managing Director, Gulf Oil Lubricants India

  Hinduja group company Gulf Oil Lubricants India is an established player in the lubricants market in India and offers a range of automotive and industrial lubricants. On the sidelines of EXCON 2015, Ravi Chawla, Managing Director, Gulf Oil Lubricants India spoke to B2B Purchase and shared his outlook on the lubricants market. Excerpts:

How do you look at the current business scenario?
The commercial vehicle (CV) and construction equipment demand for the last two years had been subdued. However, the road construction has started picking up – it is positive in the last 4 to 5 months. We have seen the customer demand increase in this area in the last few months from our customer base in this domain. At EXCON, road transport minister Nitin Gadkari talked about the government’s target of increasing road-building capacity to 30-km a day from 7-km a day at present. I think it is a positive wave!

We had discussion with our OEM partners, customers and some of the other major players during the event. It is quite understandable that the sentiment for new demand for new equipment is picking up.

Though the mining sector is required to open up more, some states have already started moving. I think mining is the sector which will help to increase the momentum further.

How do you look at partnering with OEMs?
We have strong and enduring partnerships with OEMs where we have tied-up. In the construction equipment domain, recently we tied-up with Schwing Stetter. We have our enduring partnerships with major OEMs like Ashok Leyland, MAN, Volvo Penta, Bharat Benz and others. Besides giving products of the highest quality that deliver superior value to the end-users and our services, we also do a lot of training; provide education to the service teams for better lube management and handling. We are looking forward to forge new partnerships in areas where emerging growth is going to come from.

We have recently formed a strategic partnership with Whitmore, a global producer of lubrication-centric reliability products including high performance greases for mining, rail and industrial segments for the Indian market.

How do you see the coming 5 years for the lubricant sector?
What sort of new innovation you are planning to launch in India? Customers are looking for more value. We have products which besides keeping the engines, equipments in top condition also have longer drain intervals. We have products which have been developed in keeping with the changes in engine technology as it has to keep pace with them. So we work closely to ensure that. We also see areas like fuel economy emerging as a trend and this will be an important area in the future.

From fuel efficiency and equipment quality point of view, how promising is the Indian market?
In the Indian market the business is growing. The 2 per cent of GDP growth is expected to come from road building sector. So road building is a very large consumption sector. That is the opportunity for equipment manufacturers, lubricants players and suppliers of automotive and engineering parts. We have seen the maximum opportunity. If the Indian economy grows further 2-3 per cent the lubricant sector will achieve higher growth in terms of volume. 

Lubricants can help reduction of fuel consumption by 2 to 3 per cent. Being one of the innovative players in the lubricants sector, our focus is also towards improving our lubricants to deliver good levels of fuel economy.