The petroleum industry carries immense importance in the Indian economy. Supply chain management in the petroleum industry contains various challenges, specifically in the logistics area, that are not present in most other industries. These logistical challenges have a major influence on the cost of oil derivatives and customer satisfaction level (CSL). Companies in the petroleum industry have become increasingly reliant on the services of third-party logistics companies to manage their supply chains. Companies in the petroleum industry took the outsourcing idea a step further to collaborate with competitors and found shared solutions to their supply chain challenges. This form of collaboration is referred to as a systematic cooperative reciprocal barter, or swaps. The objective of this paper is to shed some light on the downstream supply chain challenges and opportunities in the Indian petroleum industry and swap practices that should have been employed by petroleum industry’s giants around the nation. The paper analyses the benefits of Swapping practices which have long been ignored in the operations management literature. This paper will be based on the petrol pump survey that is being conducted in the state of Maharashtra.

Keywords : Petroleum Industry, Supply Chain, Swap, CSL.