Ashish Agarwal: Leading The Thriving Petrochemical Industry With Unrivalled Expertise & Knowledge
Ashish Agarwal
CEO
Ashish began his journey in the year 2000, when he was only 18, as a part-time trainee to learn the technical aspect of plants and products with a humble teapot size (capacity of 20 TPD) single mini petroleum refinery to refine petroleum products in a highly controlled, restricted, and competitive PSU dominated cluster of refining petroleum products. Leveraging his adding capacity, he upgraded the unit in the year 2013 with a capacity of 100 TPD to five folds and then acquired a manufacturing unit in the year 2020 which enhanced the refining capacity of 600 TPD by six folds. During his journey of 20 years, he has been able to transform the organization from 20 TPD to 600 TPD with holistic development.
It is Ashish's technical & management skills that have led Arham Petrochem to perform at 25 percent YoY growth and position itself among the very few niche-positioned process chemicals manufacturers of the world. Let's hear it from him.
Tell us about your leadership approach and what has been your success mantra.
I have an extremely sound technical understanding and with this capability, I have been successfully
guiding the refineries' production and managing the all-functional areas like marketing, finance, and supply chain. These technical and managerial skills, and also finding the customer's problem, the ability to give a solution, and continuously growing in terms of capacity to reduce the cost of operations have been my mantra to success.
You've been in the industry for over two decades now. How do you use the experience that you have garnered over the years professionally?
The kind of industry I am in is not something where we get manpower from the organized sector. What I have garnered over the 20 years is what I can pass on to new joiners or existing team members. It is something that we develop with our own experience we make our own way forward. Having more interaction with our customers is what our team is taught how to handpick their problems, identify what could be their upcoming problems, and find a solution within.
How would you define Arham Petrochem as an organization?
Arham Petrochem is among the global top 20 listed and top 3rd positioned Indian twin mini petroleum refinery operating company producing import substitute specialty petroleum products. We are into a wide range of solutions right from ethylene plant process chemicals to water treatment chemicals, glycols, and paints. For every sector we have got a specialty petroleum product, which large refineries do not produce.
What are the factors you take into account when developing effective corporate growth strategies?
As the CEO, I make sure to maintain ready funds availability, continuous demand analysis of imported products into key market areas, identification & adoption of technologies to produce those import substitute products, and stock point identification in far locations either direct or via dealers.
What are the best industry practices you have instilled in your team to help them process
You've been in the industry for over two decades now. How do you use the experience that you have garnered over the years professionally?
The kind of industry I am in is not something where we get manpower from the organized sector. What I have garnered over the 20 years is what I can pass on to new joiners or existing team members. It is something that we develop with our own experience we make our own way forward. Having more interaction with our customers is what our team is taught how to handpick their problems, identify what could be their upcoming problems, and find a solution within.
Having more interaction with our customers is what our team is taught how to handpick their problems, identify what could be their upcoming problems, & find a solution within
How would you define Arham Petrochem as an organization?
Arham Petrochem is among the global top 20 listed and top 3rd positioned Indian twin mini petroleum refinery operating company producing import substitute specialty petroleum products. We are into a wide range of solutions right from ethylene plant process chemicals to water treatment chemicals, glycols, and paints. For every sector we have got a specialty petroleum product, which large refineries do not produce.
What are the factors you take into account when developing effective corporate growth strategies?
As the CEO, I make sure to maintain ready funds availability, continuous demand analysis of imported products into key market areas, identification & adoption of technologies to produce those import substitute products, and stock point identification in far locations either direct or via dealers.
What are the best industry practices you have instilled in your team to help them process
petrochemical products according to requirements?
My best industry practices include regular circulation of articles & course resources, regular machinery maintenance, constant identification & upgradation of emergency plans, process optimization, and adaption of newer quality control standards.
How do you perceive the future outlook of the market? Where do you see yourself headed in the upcoming years?
Oil to Chemicals with sensible Carbon foot print is the way of future, the petroleum industry is moving on to O2C which means Oil to Chemicals instead of simple refined petroleum products; since the inception of Arham, our model is O2C. India is among the largest consumer, there is a bright future and we expect higher YoY performance with this dynamic shift of O2C, with the increased availability of raw materials will improve our facility utilization & lower inventory, all resulting in a better bottom line but at cost of higher carbon foot print, with the global green transition, the petroleum industry's days could be numbered but in the meantime, with the fast shift to O2C there is need for smaller refineries like ours to produce products with leading technology to shrink their carbon footprint. Since 2000, the company has & will continue to use proprietary processes to convert raw materials into green industrial products.
What would be your advice for budding leaders aspiring to create a benchmark in the same industry?
To be a successful leader in this industry, one has to have growth that is beyond the traditional methods of 10 percent per annum. That 10 percent is not sustainable. When he/she moves into a larger dominated sector, the growth has to be constant. One should come financially ready with this setup of this industry to sustain growth at a faster rate of ten folds.Only a quick adapting professional should enter this sector.
Ashish Agarwal, CEO, Arham Petrochem
A Young entrepreneur with rich experience in a wide range of petroleum products manufacturing, marketing & applications development, Ashish started his carrier training from scratch in every stage of Petroleum refining like QC, inventory management, process, production, technology & legal.
·Hobbies:Business & RC flying
·Favorite Cuisine:Indian
·Favorite Book:Petroleum Engineering Hand Book
·Favorite Travel Destination:
Indonesia
My best industry practices include regular circulation of articles & course resources, regular machinery maintenance, constant identification & upgradation of emergency plans, process optimization, and adaption of newer quality control standards.
How do you perceive the future outlook of the market? Where do you see yourself headed in the upcoming years?
Oil to Chemicals with sensible Carbon foot print is the way of future, the petroleum industry is moving on to O2C which means Oil to Chemicals instead of simple refined petroleum products; since the inception of Arham, our model is O2C. India is among the largest consumer, there is a bright future and we expect higher YoY performance with this dynamic shift of O2C, with the increased availability of raw materials will improve our facility utilization & lower inventory, all resulting in a better bottom line but at cost of higher carbon foot print, with the global green transition, the petroleum industry's days could be numbered but in the meantime, with the fast shift to O2C there is need for smaller refineries like ours to produce products with leading technology to shrink their carbon footprint. Since 2000, the company has & will continue to use proprietary processes to convert raw materials into green industrial products.
What would be your advice for budding leaders aspiring to create a benchmark in the same industry?
To be a successful leader in this industry, one has to have growth that is beyond the traditional methods of 10 percent per annum. That 10 percent is not sustainable. When he/she moves into a larger dominated sector, the growth has to be constant. One should come financially ready with this setup of this industry to sustain growth at a faster rate of ten folds.Only a quick adapting professional should enter this sector.
Ashish Agarwal, CEO, Arham Petrochem
A Young entrepreneur with rich experience in a wide range of petroleum products manufacturing, marketing & applications development, Ashish started his carrier training from scratch in every stage of Petroleum refining like QC, inventory management, process, production, technology & legal.
·Hobbies:Business & RC flying
·Favorite Cuisine:Indian
·Favorite Book:Petroleum Engineering Hand Book
·Favorite Travel Destination:
Indonesia