Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), an Indian multinational conglomerate company, and Saudi Aramco, the world’s largest oil-exporting company have mutually agreed to re-evaluate Aramco’s proposed $15 billion investment in Reliance’s oil-to-chemical (O2C) business.
In August 2019, the two giants signed a non-binding Letter of Intent (LOI) for a potential 20 percent stake acquisition by Saudi Aramco in the O2C Business of Reliance. Over the past two years, both companies made significant efforts in the process of due diligence, despite COVID-19 restrictions.
Reliance revealed in a statement that the reconsidering of the investment is due to the evolving nature of its portfolio to green energy. Consequently, the current application with National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) for segregating the O2C business from RIL is being withdrawn.
Recently, Reliance unveiled its plans for the New Energy & Materials businesses by announcing the development of the Dhirubhai Ambani Green Energy Giga Complex at Jamnagar, Gujarat, supporting its net-zero commitment. It will be amongst the largest integrated renewable energy manufacturing facilities in the world.
The company announced an $8.08 billion investment in the complex, which will include four Giga factories, an integrated solar photovoltaic module factory for solar energy production, an advanced energy storage battery factory for intermittent energy storage, an electrolyzer factory for green hydrogen production, and a fuel cell factory for converting hydrogen into motive and stationary power.
RIL will continue to be Saudi Aramco’s preferred partner for investments in the private sector in India and will collaborate with Aramco and Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC), a multinational chemical manufacturing company, for investments in the Kingdom.
