Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL), a navratna central public sector enterprise (CPSE), on Thursday said the privatisation of Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) could bring a better value from the consumer point of view.

In an interview to CNBC-TV18, MK Surana, chairman and managing director, said, "Any competition keeps the existing players on slightly guard so that they are more sharper and more focused on their business plans. To that extent in the larger sense, nobody can deny the benefit of the competition in any system that way."

He further added, "As far as the oil industry is concerned, we can’t say that it was not a competitive environment already unlike or contrary to the perception which many may have. Even though it was dominated by the PSU, they were competing among themselves and actually private players came long back.”

Surana said, “Just because private players are coming, you should not write off the PSUs. They are used to compete and they will compete and so will we."

Speaking about the slowdown in the economy, he said, “It should always be seen in a bit of a wider context that there is a change in the auto fuel structure as BS-VI is coming. Also, there is a lot of discussion regarding the policy narratives and that has led to some sort of cautiousness on the part of buyers, producers, sub ancillary producers and so the people were needing a little bit more clarity. A part of clarity has been provided by the government. The auto sales slowdown is more a temporary narration and once the things become clearer, things should pick up."

First Published:Oct 3, 2019 8:17 PM IST