Reliance Industries (RIL), which operates the world's third largest refinery, is likely to pick up stake in a refinery in the US, besides setting up a greenfield refinery in West Asia. | |
| RIL promoter Mukesh Ambani, who is currently in the US, has already held meetings with the top brass of Chevron, ExxonMobil and Texmaco. |
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| "A stake in one of Chevron's refineries seems to be the most likely as RIL already has an MoU with them. However, talks with Exxon and Texmaco have also been held," an industry official said. An RIL spokesperson declined to comment. |
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| Chevron already owns 5 per cent stake in Reliance Petroleum's upcoming 580,000 barrels per day refinery at Jamnagar in Gujarat. Reliance Petroleum is a subsidiary of RIL. |
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| Chevron has the option to scale that stake up to 29 per cent. RIL and Chevron also have a memorandum of understanding to co-operate in businesses all along the energy value chain. |
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| The agreement also gives Chevron the option of buying up to 40 per cent stake in RIL's deepwater D6 block in the Krishna-Godavari basin. |
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| RIL, which is the country's largest private explorer and refiner of crude oil, is also looking at acquiring stake in fuel marketing assets in the US, as it looks to export a majority of its petrol and diesel from the upcoming refinery to the US. |
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| P M S Prasad, CEO of the company's petroleum business, told a news agency recently that the company was on the look out for fuel marketing assets in the US. |
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| "Another option before RIL is that the company does not buy a refinery in the US, but the pan-American region, such as Mexico. The US has strict environmental norms that makes operating a refinery there difficult," the official said. |
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| The company is also looking at setting up a new refinery in West Asia. "However, the refinery and marketing assets in the US are on top of the agenda at the moment," the industry official added. |
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