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Indian oil firm Hindustan Petroleum Corp (HPCL) is reported to be keen on closing a deal to purchase the downstream assets of Shell New Zealand, which includes the company's marine fuel operations.

The state-owned oil giant - India's second largest integrated refining and marketing oil company - is said to have appointed PricewaterhouseCoopers to thrash out a deal to buy the Shell assets, which were put up for sale in May.

Hindustan Petroleum chairman Arun Balakrishnan has denied the reports.

In May, Shell appointed UBS to distribute information memorandums for the sale of Shell's 230 petrol stations and other downstream operations, including marine fuel, aviation, bitumen, chemical, supply and distribution businesses.

Also up for sale was a 17 per cent stake in Marsden Pt refinery owner New Zealand Refining. The 106,000 barrels-per-day facility, which is the only refinery in New Zealand, produces all the bunker fuel sold in the country.

HPCL currently operates two refineries in Mumbai and Vishakapatnam, which produce a variety of petroleum fuels & specialties. The company also owns and operates the largest lube refinery in India, which accounts for over 40 percent of the country's total lube base oil production.

HPCL is the nation's second largest supplier of marine fuels after Indian Oil Corporation. It is also very active in the marine lubricants market, supplying to customers at all the major Indian ports.

Reports of buying interest from one of India's leading oil firms, comes at a time when the Indian economy has proven to be more resilient to the global credit crunch than other markets.

At the same time, If HPCL were able to gain a foothold in the New Zealand market, this could potentially enable the company to achieve better returns than in India, where government-controlled prices have sometimes led to local firms making losses as the government tries to cushion the impact of price rises in the domestic economy by fixing a maximum price at which fuel is sold.