Saudi Aramco to acquire 20% stake in RIL's oil-to-chemical business
RIL's oil-to-chemical business has revenues of over ₹5 lakh croreThe deal is subject to regulatory approvals
Mumbai: Reliance Industries chairman and managing director Mukesh Ambani on Monday announced a deal with Saudi Aramco, terming it India's largest foreign direct investment till date. As part of the deal, Saudi Aramco will acquire a 20% stake in RIL's oil-to-chemicals (OTC) or refining and petrochemicals business at an enterprise value of $75 billion.
The deal follows RIL announcing a joint venture with BP wherein the latter will pick up 49% stake in the former’s petroleum retailing business for ₹7,000 crore.
Reliance has developed an oil-to-chemical strategy to transform the Jamnagar refinery from a producer of fuels to chemicals.
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"The objectives are to preserve as well as upgrade existing refinery margins, while maximising asset utilisation for a sustainable competitive cost of chemicals," RIL said in its 2018-19 annual report.
RIL has developed a multi-zone catalytic cracking (MCC) process, which converts a wide range of feedstock to high-value propylene and ethylene in a single riser.
The company eventually wants to achieve an over 70% conversion of crude refined in Jamnagar to competitive chemical building blocks of olefins and aromatics. The Jamnagar refinery product slate, at the culmination of oil-to-chemical transition, shall be only jet fuels and petrochemicals.
"All refined products priced below crude shall be eliminated for chemicals at the initial stage. Final fuel de-risking shall target the elimination of gasoline, alkylate and diesel, synchronised to the global evolution of E-mobility and transport fuel demand decline," RIL said in its annual report.
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