Mumbai, Dec 15: Undeterred by the criticism of anti-disinvestment lobby, Reliance industries chairman Mukesh Ambani has said that his company's interest in buying a stake in the state-owned Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL) will not create a monopoly situation in the country's oil refining and marketing sector. "We must make this point clear that as of now Reliance has a zero per cent market share in petrol pumps (marketing of petroleum products) in the country. There is no question of a monopoly even if we get HPCL. The combined refining share, with Jamnagar at 25 per cent and HPCL at eight per cent, will still be well below 35 per cent", Ambani told here.
Admitting that the country's only private sector oil major was "indeed" interested in buying the government's stake in HPCL, Ambani said the conglomerate was waiting for clear cut government policy on the proposed strategic sale.
He said that Reliance's interests in oil refining and marketing are different from that in petrochemicals.
"Even in Indian Petrochemicals Corporation Ltd case, I will not consider it as a monopoly, as according to the new competition bill, monopoly is an area which deals with pricing mechanism that could hurt the consumers interest. We have not done that and moreover HPCL is a different thing altogether", he explained.
RIL, which owns the world's fifth largest 27 million tonne refinery, has aspirations to enter the transport fuel marketing and is seen among the aggressive bidders for HPCL. Bureau Report