Reliance Industries' $4-bn investment threatened by global natural gas glut

Reliance predicted in 2014 that the project would boost Jamnagar's refining margins by about $2 a barrel, but Centrum Broking Ltd now sees an uplift of $1.30 to $1.50 by the 2021-2022 fiscal year

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 US, Australia and Russia. 

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