Team Blitz India
NEW DELHI: This October, the police and the Indian Oil Corporation Limited in Delhi woke up to a startling revelation of a 40-metre tunnel clandestinely leaking and stealing oil in the Dwarka area. Criminals had built access to the pipelines at an IOCL facility and a man was arrested in connection with this audacious act. Later, the police revealed that the person and his gang had constructed a tunnel and with meticulous precision, perforated the pipeline. They used a valve mechanism to syphon off oil worth crores.
Oil pilferage and stealing is a global phenomenon and in India it did not have a solution till a Keralite IT expert working in Sweden gave up his job to start a venture to innovate ways to combat oil loss to companies.
Safil Sunny, a native of Angamaly in Ernakulam, followed stories of massive oil thefts in India and the engineering graduate studied the flaws in the system and a possible solution. He quit his tech job and started his own venture called Tranzmeo, a firm which aims to make Rs 100 million in revenue in the next five years owing to its monopoly in the Indian market currently.
Sunny’s company employs Artificial Intelligence (AI), machine learning, photonics, and fibre sensing to proactively detect issues such as leaks and intrusions in pipelines, thereby leading to substantial reductions in fuel loss and environmental harm.
The Kerala- based startup Tranzmeo’s solutions have proven to be an effective deterrent against thefts in the pipelines and is proving to be a boon to the Indian energy sector.
The company currently looks after approximately 5,000 km of pipelines across India. It has developed systems that automatically generates alerts if any specific pattern of activities is identified as a threat. Sunny’s efforts to start his venture received a major push in 2018 when Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL) joined the youth’s venture as an investor.
The startup received a major boost in its image this year by securing an exclusive invitation to the prestigious Society of Petroleum Engineers’ Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition (ATCE) 2023. Tranzmeo was the sole Indian startup representing the energy sector at this renowned global event. The company is now in the process of expanding its footprints by starting operations in the United States as well.
