ANALYSIS OF SCM PRACTICES AND DISRUPTIVE TECHNOLOGIES READINESS IN INDIAN PETROLEUM INDUSTRY

Abstract

The petroleum industry contributes to most of the world's energy and industrial markets. The UN's sustainable goals are to tackle the world's economic, social, and environmental challenges by 2030. The petroleum industry can significantly contribute to Goal 7 (affordable and clean energy), Goal 8 (decent work and economic growth), and Goal 13 (climate action). The present research considers the case of the Indian petroleum industry. India imports 82% of its oil needs, and demand is expected to increase threefold by 2035. As per the India Brand Equity Foundation report 2019, India was the third-largest crude oil importer in the world in 2019. The petroleum sector's operational activities account for 9% of all greenhouse gas emissions. Over the time of 2016–19, India emitted 2.65 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide. As the third largest carbon emitter, India plans to reduce its carbon footprints by 33%–35% from 2005 levels by 2030. The petroleum supply chains remain competitive in a globalized market. The petroleum industry has direct and indirect effects on the economy as the price of crude oil directly affects the economy's health. Previous literature suggests that the petroleum industry faces challenges such as high logistics cost, risk in the supply chain, high lead time, data security, environment deterioration, uncertainty in the supply chain, etc. Thus, keeping this in mind, the study aims to determine the challenges in supply chain practices and explore the disruptive technologies in the petroleum industry. This research work has five objectives, and the whole thesis is divided into nine chapters. The study was performed with an extensive literature survey and experts' input. The Experts were different backgrounds petroleum companies' experts (General managers, Audit managers, Drilling experts, Environmental scientists, Marketing experts, and Customer service experts), government officers (Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas), retail operators, and academicians. The first chapter introduces and presents the basic background and need of study. It describes the Indian petroleum industry and the study's motivation and research gaps that arise. The second chapter deals with the literature review, and it provides an in-depth and exhaustive review of literature on the petroleum supply chain. An extensive review of literature on disruptive technologies' role in the petroleum industry is also discussed. The third chapter presents the research approach followed. It discusses the various methodologies multicriteria decision making such as Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL), Fuzzy Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Situation ((F-TOPSIS), Total Interpretive Structural Modelling (TISM), Rough set theory, Hesitant set theory, and Regret set theory. iii The fourth chapter aims to identify the prominent risk factors and causal relationships among the risk factors of the petroleum supply chain. The prime three risk factors are fluctuating crude oil price, quality of products, and the inability to anticipate market changes. The fifth chapter aims to determine the petroleum industry's supply chain challenges the companies face and the consumers' perspective. The research shows that in the TISM-I model, government policies, environmental regulatory compliance, and adverse weather conditions are leading variables; however, resource availability is a lagging variable. In the TISM-II model, the products' quality and price are leading variables, and the social welfare initiative is a lagging variable. The sixth chapter aims to determine the green practices and develop a contextual interrelationships framework to explore the reason behind the lack of green supply chain management (GSCM). The result determined the green information system is the heart of GSCM. The green information system is the driving practice that drives the four other practices (green procurement, green production, green distribution, and investment recovery). The seventh chapter aims to identify supply chain performance indices and design an evaluation framework to assess and compare petroleum supply chain performance. The research presented a case study of three Indian petroleum companies (A, B, and C). The finding of the result states that the top 3 performance criteria are the purity of the products, compliance with environmental laws, and new technology adoption. The results also suggest that company C contributes to a maximum satisfaction level of 77%. On the other hand, companies A and B hold 72% and 67% satisfaction levels. The eighth chapter's aim is to identify the prime sustainable dimensions and disruptive technologies implementation in the supply chain of the petroleum industry. The computational results show that the top three sustainable dimensions are social responsibility, labour practices, and safety and technical standards. The ninth chapter explains the study's implications and the conclusion of the study. In this way, this thesis fills the research gap in the existing literature of the petroleum supply chain. This work's proposed frameworks and findings would be considered a benchmark for other energy-dependent counties.