Mukesh Ambani’s $4 billion investment in RIL threatened by global glut in natural gas
A global glut in natural gas is threatening to undermine a $4 billion investment by Reliance Industries Ltd. aimed at boosting profits at the world’s largest oil refining complex. The project made all the sense in the world when energy magnate Mukesh Ambani’s conglomerate announced it in 2012: convert petroleum coke, or petcoke, one of the cheapest and dirtiest refinery by-products, into gas needed to power the massive Jamnagar complex on India’s west coast. Then it hit about three years of delays, and global gas markets crashed amid a growing supplies of liquefied cargoes from the U.S., Australia and Russia.
The 10 synthetic gasifiers that make up the project are now finally commissioned. But the imported LNG they’re meant to displace has fallen from about $15 per million British thermal units in 2012 to less than $5. And that price slump has reduced the project’s viability, according to a person with knowledge of the company’s finances.
