Billionaire Mukesh Ambani's oil-to-telecom conglomerate Reliance Industries Ltd slipped 59 places to rank 155th on the 2021 Fortune Global 500 list released on Monday. Reliance took a beating on the rankings as revenues dropped owing to the COVID-19 pandemic. This is its lowest ranking since 2017. Walmart continues to top the Fortune list with a revenue of $524 billion, followed by China's State Grid at $384 billion.
The government has lost its appeal in the English High Court against a $111 million arbitration award in favour of Reliance Industries Ltd and Shell in a cost recovery dispute in the western offshore Panna-Mukta and Tapti oil and gas fields. High Court judge Ross Cranston on June 9, 2022 ruled that the government should have brought its objections over the arbitration tribunal not meeting the required thresholds, when issuing the 2021 award earlier, two sources with knowledge of the matter said. Rejecting the government's arguments, the court said the objections are barred by an English law principle whereby a party cannot raise matters in new proceedings that could have been raised in earlier proceedings.
The Rs 3-trillion West Coast or Nanar refinery has all the potential to become India's flagship petrochemicals project, with the planet's largest oil producer Saudi Aramco as its biggest shareholder. Yet the locals don't see the plant as a harbinger of better times.
The rating affirmation reflected RIL's strong business profile - a large-scale refinery with a capacity of around 1.2 million barrels a day and dominant market position in petrochemicals.
"We are delighted to welcome Google as a strategic investor in Jio Platforms. We have signed a binding partnership and an investment agreement under which Google will invest Rs 33,737 crores for a 7.7 per cent stake in Jio Platforms," Mukesh Ambani said at the company's annual general meeting.
Reliance Industries Ltd's focus on the next hypergrowth opportunities in clean tech and its path to decarbonisation has the potential to spur re-rating, raises clarity on investment cycles and reduces investor worry, brokerages said. RIL chairman Mukesh Ambani at the company's 'Green AGM' on Thursday committed Rs 75,000 crore over the next three years to set up an integrated Green Energy Giga Complex across 5,000 acres in Jamnagar, Gujarat which will contain four giga factories. The complex, which would be one of the world's largest renewable manufacturing facilities, would have an integrated solar photovoltaic module factory, an energy storage battery factory, electrolyser manufacturing for hydrogen production, and manufacturing of fuel cells so that hydrogen can be used in transportation.
In December 2019, the India arm of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu surprised many with its ultra-competitive bid to become the transaction advisor for the country's largest strategic divestment in Bharat Petroleum Corporation (BPCL). The multinational major quoted just Rs 1; the second-highest bidder, SBI Caps, reportedly quoted Rs 15-17 crore. For Deloitte, the motivation was to bag a prestigious deal adding a national energy company to its portfolio. No doubt, it expected BPCL to go to a marquee buyer in quick time.
Together with the firm's partly-paid shares that were issued in the recent rights issue and are traded separately, the company had a combined m-cap of Rs 13.5 lakh crore or over $181 billion.
RIL's debt stood at Rs 3.06 trillion as of December 2019, against Rs 2.87 trillion in March 2019.
Reliance announced a rights issue of Rs 53,125 crore, which it said was the biggest in India.
Aramco Trading Co, a subsidiary of state oil giant Saudi Aramco, offered 2.8 million barrels of ultra low sulphur diesel for loading in late July to early August
Multiple triggers such as asset sales, pickup in energy cash flows, increased traction in omni-channel retail, and rise in ARPUs could further drive the stock.
This is the highest any Indian company has been ranked on the Fortune Global 500 list.
India may see a structural shift in supplies of crude oil with Russia emerging as a key source of fuels, a development that reduces New Delhi's dependence on West Asian oil, gives Indian refiners better bargaining power with price-setter Saudi Arabia, and improves overall energy security. The unexpected surge in supplies of Russian crude in the last few months, unthinkable until the war in Ukraine, may also deliver other unforeseen gains such as boosting exports of refined fuels to Europe, which historically has counted on Russian shipments. India has jumped on to the bandwagon of opportunistic buying of Russian crude but if calibrated carefully, Urals crude can be a long-term asset for India refiners.
A shortfall in LPG supply from Aramco has led to huge booking backlog across states. To meet the backlog, India has asked Abu Dhabi National Oil Company for two additional cargos of LPG, but that may take another 10 days to reach.
Nearly two weeks after drone and missile attacks on its vital oil facilities, Saudi Arabia has said it is enhancing cooperation with India to combat terrorism, including choking funds to terror networks and exchange of information and intelligence.
ONGC was the top gainer in the Sensex pack, rallying around 6 per cent, followed by IndusInd Bank, L&T, UltraTech Cement, Titan, SBI and NTPC. NSE Nifty settled 32.10 points up at 14,707.80.
10 analysts estimated RIL's consolidated net profit at Rs 11,256 crore and nine analysts estimated revenue at Rs 1.5 trillion.
FB deal puts RIL on course to be debt-free next year; Reliance Retail biggest gainer from WhatsApp, JioMart arrangement.
The proposed reorganisation plan by Reliance Industries Ltd to transfer its refining, marketing and petrochemical (oil-to-chemicals) businesses to a wholly-owned subsidiary is a step towards facilitating participation by strategic investors in the unit, Fitch Ratings said on Tuesday. The reorganisation of the business in Reliance O2C Limited (O2C) "will have a neutral impact on RIL's credit metrics and rating," it said in a statement. The transfer will be on a "slump sale basis", subject to attaining the requisite approvals.
With the government reducing the net worth for new entities in fuel-marketing space to Rs 250 crore, the market is open for new players like Total, Adani, and Saudi Aramco -- and even supermarkets - to open fuel outlets.
'If UAV technology is used by the adversary to target VIPs or strategic targets it would be a different ball game altogether,' says Group Captain Murli Menon (retd).
After monetising Jio Platforms -- which houses the firm's telecom arm and digital ventures, richest Indian Mukesh Ambani is looking to rope in investors in the retail business.
Despite a massive underperformance at the bourses since the last six months, analysts are turning optimistic on Reliance Industries (RIL). Those at Jefferies, for instance, say that the company is a proxy play for India's consumption growth story. The key catalysts for the stock, according to a Jeffries note, include faster-than-expected market share gain in retail, oil-to-chemicals (O2C) stake sale, recovery in gross refining margins (GRM), potential public listing of Jio and even a possible banking licence going ahead. That apart, analysts feel any tariff hike in Reliance Jio (RJio) - its telecom venture - will also aid performance. With balance sheet adequately de-levered, proceeds from a strategic stake sale in the O2C business will create a sizeable war chest for the company, analysts say.
More than a year of Covid-19 has pushed most businesses into gloom but Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) managed to reduce its gross debt 25 per cent, enabling it to turn towards its next phase of capital expenditure that has come in the form of a Rs 75,000-crore plan for green energy and power storage. The company managed to stay afloat during the pandemic because of its large presence in the consumer-centric businesses of retail and telecommunication (see chart: "A new Reliance"). These two businesses constituted 45 per cent of its EBITDA during FY21 from 36 per cent in FY20.
RIL, however, remains miles ahead of TCS in other financial parameters such as total revenue, operating profit, net worth, assets, and market capitalisation.
FutureBrand, which is a global brand transformation company, said part of Reliance's success could be attributed to Mukesh Ambani's recasting of the firm as a one-stop-shop for Indians.
Though the NDA government had been trying to privatise 20 companies, a decision for which was taken in 2017, and included national carrier Air India, the investor community evinced little enthusiasm for any of them. Now, with an in-principle approval for privatisation of BPCL, CCI and SCI, the government has taken the plunge again.
Petrol and diesel prices were on Wednesday hiked by 24-25 paise per litre, the steepest increase since July 5 Union Budget, as a fallout of turmoil in global oil markets following drone attacks on Saudi Arabian crude oil facilities.
The Orwellian surveillance State is here. And here to stay, asserts Virendra Kapoor.
At market close, the oil-to-telecom conglomerate's market capitalisation (m-cap) zoomed to Rs 10,01,555.42 crore on BSE.
Reliance Industries shareholders will have to pay only 25 per cent for subscribing to the company's mega Rs 53,125-crore rights issue, and the balance will have to be paid in two instalments in May and November next year, the company said.
RIL and Shell ceased production from the fields in 2016, and ONGC has already been using Tapti infrastructure for its other fields for better optimisation.
Sena also said that laying a brick for the $44 billion (Rs 3 lakh crore) mega refinery project at Nanar in Ratnagiri district of Maharashtra would be akin to laying the foundation stone for a cancer hospital there.
Bucking the overall downtrend, shares of RIL rallied nearly 10 per cent, capping the Sensex loss to a large extent.
If the reforms are implemented, multi-brand retail majors such as Future Group and Reliance Retail might enter the fuel retail space.
The company expects net proceeds of Rs 53,036.13 crore from the rights issue that opens on May 20 and closes on June 3.
'The surge of Saudi nationalism is the last thing Washington wants,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Oil prices jumped nearly $3 a barrel and gold and safe-haven bonds rallied on Friday after the killing of top Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani in an airstrike by the US in Baghdad.