Petronas Lubricants International, the lubricants manufacturing and marketing arm of Malaysia's national oil and gas company PETRONAS, announced it will invest $50 million in a lubricant blending plant, its first in India.

A joint land lease agreement was signed by the company with Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) for a lubricant blending plant to be built on 25 acres of industrial land in the Patalganga area near Mumbai, Maharashtra with an initial capacity of 60,000 tons per year, the first phase of the plant expected to be completed by the end of 2015. The plant has a provision to expand the capacity to 120,000 tons per year in the second phase.

"Now that we have a good footing in the market, we are ready to take the next step towards establishing PETRONAS' lubricants business and brand in India - and this involves investing into building facilities that will support our supply chain network, as well as developing people to work with us in both manufacturing and marketing lubricants here," said Giuseppe Pedretti, Asia Regional Head of PETRONAS Lubricants International. "Since our venture into India in 2006, we have charted a five year cumulative annual growth rate of more than 57%, through the support of our distributors and business partners here," said Pedretti

PETRONAS Lubricants International, a Fortune 500 company manufactures, markets and distributes high-end lubricants, transmission, anti-freeze and functional fluids for land transportation, machinery and other industrial equipment. The company already has a marketing and distributorship presence in India.