Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries Ltd has a 15-year vision to build itself as a new energy company that aims to recycle CO2, create value from plastic waste and has an optimal mix of clean and affordable energy. While the oil-to-chemical conglomerate has in recent times seen focus on consumer business, RIL’s core oil-to-chemical (O2C) business is well placed to generate sustained free cash flow, BofA Securities reportedly conveyed. Future of O2C is new energy company and partnerships. This new energy business based on the principle of carbon recycling and circular economy is a multi-trillion opportunity for India and the world. The brokerage said a key focus for RIL is renewable energy, and for that it intends to build an optimal mix of clean and affordable energy with hydrogen, wind, solar, fuel cells and battery.
Reliance has the largest single site refinery at Jamnagar in Gujarat with crude processing capacity of 1.24 million barrels per day. The brokerage said RIL is looking to make CO2 as a recyclable resource, rather than treating it as an emitted waste. While the company will remain a user of crude oil and natural gas, it is looking to embrace new technologies to convert CO2 into useful products and chemicals. In November last year, RIL confirmed plans to invest Rs 70,000 crore to establish a crude oil-to-chemicals (COTC) complex at the company’s Jamnagar facility. The company is proposing to develop a total area of 2,000 acres adjacent to its world-scale facilities at Jamnagar to build the COTC complex. The plan is also to convert the Jamnagar site’s existing fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) unit to a high severity FCC (HSFCC) or Petro FCC unit, to maximise ethylene and propylene yields.