Once Essar's own refinery goes on stream, company plans to replace the import with its own products. Essar has achieved financial closure for its $2.2billion refinery project just last quarter and is hopeful to complete it refinery within next 18 months.

The company has invested $150 million in the retail network and hopes to commission the project by the end of current year.

The idea behind starting retail gas stations much ahead of commissioning of the refinery is to create a niche in the retail petroleum products market for the Essar as a brand, Ruia said. "we will soon be launching our own brand in retail petroleum products."

Alongside the refinery project, Essar has initiated steps to set up a unit of Essar Oil in Dubai, which will focus on crude trading to meet the requirement of the refinery and will also facilitate its trading in diesel and petrol for retail stations in India.