RPL to recreate miracle: Mukesh

Reliance chief showcases Jamnagar II to investment bankers.

Around 250 of the country's top investment bankers and retail brokers flew down to Jamnagar today to listen to Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani's first presentation on Reliance Petroleum Ltd, which is setting up the world's largest stand-alone refinery. Reliance Industries' chartered two Boeings to bring the bankers from all over the country.

Ambani, who landed in Jamnagar in the wee hours of the day after a whirlwind tour of the US, said Reliance Petroleum wanted to "recreate a miracle".

The first miracle was the existing Reliance Industries refinery that was built in a record time of 36 months at half the cost of comparable refineries all over the world.

"We will complete the new refinery in record time once again at a time when the country is witnessing another oil shock after the ones in 1973 and 1979," Ambani said.

Asking the investment bankers and brokers to join him in this "exciting" initiative, Ambani said the world's energy needs would be more than 50 per cent higher in 2030 than today.

Over 60 per cent of that increase would be for oil and natural gas. By 2030, the world would be consuming 16.3 billion tonnes of oil equivalent "" 5.5 billion tonnes more than today. Oil remained the single most important fuel, with two-thirds of the increase in oil use coming from the transport sector, he said.

Demand for oil, he said, would reach 92 million barrels a day in 2010 and 115 mb/d in 2030. Ambani said, for the first time in many years, the world was experiencing serious constraints in refining capacity.

In the next 20 years, the world oil demand would not be met unless a hundred world-scale refineries were erected, he added.