Tide Water Oil Co. (India) Ltd., a 26.22 per cent subsidiary of the multi divisional Andrew Yule group and a lubricant manufacturer in India, last Monday announced the formation of a 50:50 joint venture with JX Nippon Oil & Energy, Japan, to produce and market the latter’s lubricant brand under “Eneos” in India, Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan, according to press reports.

The JV company will be called JX Nippon TWO Lubricants India Pvt Ltd.

Tide Water Oil has five lube manufacturing plants in India, specifically Faridabad, Howrah, Silvassa, Turbhe, and Oragadam with a combined capacity of 88,000 KL of oil and 4,400 MT of grease. Eneos would be manufactured in Mumbai and Chennai units of Tide Water Oil (India) Ltd. The three other units of the company are based out of Kolkata, Dadra & Nagar Haveli and Faridabad.

According to Kallol Dutta, Chairman, Andrew Yule, if required the Dadra & Nagar Haveli facility will also be used to manufacture Eneos.

“We were earlier into a licensing agreement with Nippon. Then we thought of going for a joint venture as it would create a positive impact on the Japanese and Korean auto majors we are looking to service here,” Dutta said.

Datta said earlier this year that Tide Water, which also had its own lube brand 'Veedol', was selling around 70,000 kilo litres per annum. Out of that, 25 per cent was 'Eneos'. Tide Water acquired the Veedol brand from BP Castrol in late 2011.

In 1993, Tide Water Oil had entered into a technical collaboration with Mitsubishi Oil Company to market its lubricants in India. This collaboration continued with Nippon Oil Corporation when the latter merged with and absorbed Mitsubishi Oil in 1999. In 2010 Nippon Oil Corporation was restructured and re-organized and became JX Nippon Oil & Energy Corporation, the largest petroleum conglomerate in Japan. Tide Water Oil, having built a substantial lubricant business in India for its Veedol Brand, continued to market the ENEOS brand in India through a technical collaboration Agreement with JX Nippon Oil & Energy Corporation. This also enabled it to gain a larger footprint in the OEM oil segment by virtue of becoming Genuine Oil suppliers to the leading 2-wheeler companies in India like Hero MotoCorp, Honda Motorcycles and Scooters India and India Yamaha Motor as well as other Japanese OEMs like Kobelco and Kubota.