Reliance Industries and Aramco shore up ties ahead of deal worth billions

New Delhi, Jun 24 (EFE).- Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries (RIL) announced Thursday the appointment of Saudi oil company Aramco Chairman Yasir Al-Rumayyan to its board, while expectations are rife about the conclusion of deal worth billions of dollars between the two firms.

Al-Rumayyan will join the board of RIL as an independent director, Mukesh Ambani, the Indian conglomerate’s owner, said Thursday at the annual meeting in a move that is expected to accelerate an agreement.

In 2019, Ambani had announced the company’s decision to sell 20 percent shares of its oil and chemicals division, Oil to Chemicals, valued at $75 billion, to Saudi oil company Aramco.

However, the deal was suspended in 2020 following a collapse of oil prices in the market.

We expect to formalise the partnership with Saudi Aramco this year,” Ambani said Thursday amid expectations of a jump in the financial markets with respect to the agreement for an estimated investment of $15 billion between the two petrochemical giants.

This is the largest investment ever announced by Reliance, and also one of the largest foreign investments ever made in India, according to the powerful Indian businessman during the revelation of the non-binding agreement almost two years ago.

Saudi Aramco, the world’s largest oil producer, has had a long-standing business relationship with Reliance Industries, which owns the world’s largest crude refinery.

RIL stocks have been down in the last two weeks with investors expecting large announcements from the annual general meeting.

However, even after the event, the shares reported a 2.6 percent drop in the NSE index of the Bombay Stock Exchange on Thursday.

Another big announcement was the launch of the JioPhone Next, a smartphone developed by the telecoms division of Reliance Jio in partnership with Google.

Ambani claimed that “World’s Cheapest 4G Smartphone” will be launched on Sep. 10.

“It is a fully featured smartphone supporting the entire suite of applications from both Google and Jio,” announced the businessman without revealing any details about the phone or its price. EFE

igr/sc