August 1996

Founding of the Joint Venture Indian Oiltanking Ltd (IOT)

At first it is difficult to gain a toehold in the state-controlled oil industry. It takes three long years of negotiations with the state oil companies Indian Oil Corporation and IBP before finally, on August 28, 1996, Indian Oiltanking Ltd (IOT) is founded as a joint venture between Oiltanking GmbH (50%) and the Indian Oil Corporation Ltd and IBP (each 25%). The newly-founded company's goal is to establish tank space all along the Indian coastline in order to improve the infrastructure and shorten the waiting time for tankers in the ports. The past two years have been spent studying the Indian ports in terms of available oil storage capacity, and from that, a list of potential tank terminal locations was produced.

The first project is in Mumbai (formerly Bombay). 18 hectares of land are bought here and it is hoped that the first stage of the new terminal (120,000 cbm) will be completed by 1999. Its initial annual throughput will be 2.5 million tons, increasing to 6 million tons of petroleum per year over the next five years. Other projects are planned for India's east and west coasts. Besides constructing deep-water terminals, IOT intends to build inland tank terminals. The idea is to be firmly established in India by the time the petroleum market opens up.