Reliance Industries to complete $15 billion stake sale to Saudi Aramco this year

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Reliance Industries will complete its $15 billion stake sale to Saudi oil giant Aramco this year, Mukesh Ambani said at the 44th Annual General Meeting of Reliance Industries.</p>
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Reliance Industries will sell a 20 per cent stake in its oil-to-chemicals business, comprising oil refineries at Jamnagar in Gujarat and petrochemical assets, to Saudi Aramco, the world's largest oil exporter.</p>
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Saudi Aramco chairman Yasir Al Rumayyan has been inducted in the board of Reliance Industries as an independent director.</p>
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"Al-Rumayyan joining our board is also the beginning of internationalisation of Reliance," Chairman Mukesh Ambani said at the annual general meeting of shareholders on Thursday.</p>
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The partnership is expected to give Reliance an easier and stable access to crude oil from Saudi Aramco, while the latter will be moving up the value chain in the refinery business in one of the world’s fastest growing market for petroleum products.</p>
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Reliance Industries had made the stake sale announcement in 2019, but the deal did not come through as the two companies had differences over the valuation of the 20% stake after oil prices crashed last year in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.</p>
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Reliance Industries has segregated its businesses into separate verticals – Jio Platforms houses the company's digital and telecom unit, retail is a separate unit, and oil refining and petrochemical segments were carved into a separate business to make it easier to go in for strategic partnerships and attract more capital.</p>
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"Our oil-to-chemicals business faced unprecedented challenges by severe economic contraction at the beginning of year. Yet we were probably the only company globally that operated at near full capacity and was profitable in every quarter," Ambani explained.</p>
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Mukesh Ambani said he was "delighted to welcome Saudi Aramco chairman Yasir Al Rumayyan on Reliance Industries board. I am sure that we will immensely benefit from his rich experience with one of the world's largest companies, and also one of the largest Sovereign Wealth Funds in the world. "</p>
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Public Investment Fund has also invested in Reliance Industries digital ventures. In June last year, PIF bought a 2.32 per cent stake in RIL's digital unit Jio Platforms for Rs 11,367 crore. Five months later, it picked up a 2.04 per cent stake in RIL's retail venture for Rs 9,555 crore. Public Investment Fund has also invested Rs 3,779 crore in an infrastructure investment trust, Digital Fibre Infrastructure Trust, which holds RIL's fibre-optic assets.</p>
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Meanwhile, Mukesh Ambani laid the roadmap for clean energy business by announcing an investment of Rs 60,000 crore in renewable energy production. Reliance Industries will set up four facilities viz. integrated solar photovoltaic giga factory, advanced energy storage giga factory, electrolyser giga factory and fuel cell giga factory.</p>