The country’s largest corporate Reliance Industries has both increased and advanced its planned investment saying it would pump in Rs 1.5 trillion into its all key business verticals like oil and gas, petrochemicals, retail and telecom, that too in the next three years. Addressing his shareholders, Chairman Mukesh Ambani said, "Reliance has embarked On its largest investment programme in its history." "Reliance is making significant investment in all five businesses simultaneously exploration and production, petroleum refining and marketing, petrochemical, retail and broadband and digital services," Ambani said.
The money will flow into oil and gas exploration and production, refining and marketing, petrochemicals, retail and broadband and digital services, he said. RIL is aiming to be "among the top 5 petrochemical producers in the world," he said adding the petrochem capacity is being expanded to 25 million tonne from 15 mt per annum. Last year Ambani had told shareholders that the company, sitting on a cash pile of Rs 84,000 crore, would invest Rs 1,00,000 crore over four-five years, which has now been expanded to Rs 1.5 lakh crore and time compressed to three years.
While RIL' partnership with British gas major BP has started delivering results with a significant gas discovery being made 2-km below the currently producing fields in KG-D6 block, the company is now looking at quickly bringing into production satellite fields in the flagging block and nearby areas. Also, it is looking at beginning production from its Sohagpur coal-bed methane blocks in MP by 2015, he said.
While Ambani did not give a roadmap for launch of telecom services, he said the telecom business unit will increase headcount to 10,000 next year from 3,000 currently. The unit, Reliance Jio Infocomm, is the only company to have nationwide permits for 4G broadband services, but is yet to start commercial services. "We are making these investments at a time when the global economy is facing one of its most challenging period in modern times. Most of economies are faced with slowdown, high unemployment and lack of visible growth triggers," he said, adding we have already invested Rs 18,000 crore into the telecom vertical. Ambani said 4G telecom services would be pillared on "affordability and providing an unparallel range of services that do not exist today. In the coming years Reliance Jio's next generation digital infra and services platform will catalyse a transformation and will embrace almost every facet of our economic growth and social progress," he said.
