HPCL supplies lubricants and greases direct to some industrial customers and to a network of 274 distributors and 20,025 retail outlets, many of them in the bazaar market. In its most recent annual report, the company stated that digitalization opened new opportunities for cost optimization in the lubricants business and improved delivery of services.

“With India’s vision of becoming a technology-first nation, organizations like FuelBuddy are aiding the consumers to achieve that,” Sanjay Kumar, executive director of HPCL’s strategic business unit, said in a press release.

“With HPCL’s Lubricants and FuelBuddy’s existing customer base, this association will come as a bonus to our consumers as fuel and lubricants go hand in hand when it comes to providing efficient energy delivery services,” said FuelBuddy’s CEO for India, Neeraj Gupta. “This partnership is another step toward our efforts to democratize and digitize fuel availability and distribution in India.” The company is looking at expanding its services throughout the country.

HPCL operates six blending plants through India. The company’s base stock plant in Mumbai – owned jointly with Oil and Natural Gas, which has a 51.1% controlling stake – makes API Groups I, II and III base stocks, and is the largest base oil plant in India.

Owned by India’s central government, the company said in the annual report that its overall lubricant sales volume declined 12% to 545,200 metric tons for the fiscal year ending March 31. The company cited constraints that included product availability issues stemming from a planned maintenance turnaround at the Mumbai base oil plant.

FuelBuddy was founded in 2016 with the goal of solving challenges faced in procuring and storing fuel, including pilferage, theft, spillage, monitoring and control of consumption. The company has 2,000 employees providing services to more than 130 cities and 4,500 clients across India.