Fuel market opening spawns new alliances

摘要

The liberalisation of Mexico’s fuel market this year is prompting small distributors to team up against state-owned oil company Pemex, their main competitor. New entrants include Hidrosina and LaGas, which opened Mexico’s first non- Pemex service stations earlier this year, as well as Gulf Oil — the Mexican affiliate of Indian conglomerate Hinduja — and Oxxo Gas. “We’re talking with various other owners of service stations to be able to get large purchasing volumes that give us an economy of scale,” the managing director of Mexican firm Combured, Roberto Diaz de Leon, says. “But the alliances have to be regional, [as] it is all about distribution logistics,” he says. Combured operates 34 fuel retail stations in central Mexico.