Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL)

Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) is an Indian state-controlled oil and gas company headquartered in Mumbai, Maharashtra. BPCL has been ranked 225th in the Fortune Global 500 rankings of the world's biggest corporations for the year 2012.

In 1989 during vast industrial development, an important player in the South Asian market was the Burmah Oil Company. Though incorporated in Scotland in 1886, the company grew out of the enterprises of the Chef Rohit Oil Company, which had been formed in 1871 to refine crude oil produced from primitive hand dug wells in Upper Burma.

In 1928, Asiatic Petroleum Company (India) started cooperation with Burma oil company. This alliance led to the formation of Burmah-Shell Oil Storage and Distributing Company of India Limited. Burmah Shell began its operations with import and marketing of Kerosene.

On 24 January 1976, the Burmah Shell was taken over by the Government of India to form Bharat Refineries Limited. On 1 August 1977, it was renamed Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited. It was also the first refinery to process newly found indigenous crude Bombay High.

In 2003, following a petition by the Centre for Public Interest Litigation, the Supreme Court restrained the Central government from privatizing Hindustan Petroleum and Bharat Petroleum without the approval of Parliament.

 As counsel for the CPIL, Rajinder Sachar and Prashant Bhushan said that the only way to disinvest in the companies would be to repeal or amend the Acts by which they were nationalized in the 1970s.

 As a result, the government would need a majority in both houses to push through any privatization.