Shell India, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Shell and major private crude product supplier, has launched V-Power, its premium performance petrol, in India.

Launching V-Power in Bangalore on Thursday, Ravi Sundararajan, general manager, Shell Retail India, said the company plans to expand its retail outlet network in India.

Currently the company operates 76 outlets across six states – Karnataka, Assam, Gujarat, Maharastra, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. “We have a license to open around 2,000 outlets in India and we will take forward our expansion plans as fuel price is deregulated,” he said without disclosing in-depth details about the company’s expansion plans.

He said the new product V-Power premium performance petrol will be available across all the company’s major outlets in India. V-Power will replace the existing Shell Super brand of premium petrol in India.

Inspired by Shell’s technological innovations for Ferrari, Shell V-Power petrol has a unique double-action formulation designed to actively clean the engine and protect vital engine parts to help deliver more power.

He said, “We are delighted to bring Shell V-Power to India, a globally acknowledged and successful fuel which has already marked its presence in 67 countries around the world. The advanced technology of Shell V-Power is designed to enhance the responsiveness of the engine by aiding it in performing to its potential.

He also said that India is an important market for Shell. The company’s technical centre in Bangalore delivers high-end technical studies, projects and services for Shell worldwide. Its services span upstream, downstream, chemicals, gas and refinery operations and laboratories for downstream operations.

Currently the Bangalore centre hosts 10 Centres of Excellence (COEs). Among them is the Computation CoE which works on computerised grand challenges in the energy industry, ranging from high performance modeling of materials and chemicals, computational fluid dynamics, geophysics, digital rock, sensor technologies and reservoir modeling.

According to Mae Ascan, senior fuels scientist, Shell Projects and Technology, Shell V-Power undergoes rigorous testing both in the lab and at the track, before it ever makes its way to the market. “Shell’s technical partnership with Ferrari has given us the environment to test Shell V-Power fuels in extreme conditions; providing us with a better understanding of what will deliver improved power and performance,” she said.