Shell rules out India capital expansion plan

NEW DELHI: Energy firm Shell on Friday ruled out huge capital investments in India and said it would rather improve its competitiveness in the market. “We have already made over a billion dollar investment in India. We do not have to make more investments. We have to run the business more efficiently to be more competitive in the market,” chairman of Shell Group of Companies in India Vikram Mehta said.

He said, “We do not need to build more factories or plants because those are already in place. Now we need to expand operations as foundation is already there.”

Mr Mehta clarified that the company has no plans to enter the refining business in India. About the state of its LNG business in India after availability of Reliance Industries’ KG-D6 basin gas, he said, “RIL gas from KG-D6 basin has not affected our business as market is large enough to absorb both LNG and domestic gas. RIL is still buying LNG from us.”

Mr Mehta said, “The government has to finally decide, how they want to arrange the pricing mechanism for petroleum (products), before private sector retailing becomes viable business.”

Meanwhile, Shell also signed a memorandum of understanding with CII to promote various road safety programmes in association with civil societies.