MOSCOW (MRC) -- India's Reliance Industries (RIL), operator of the world's biggest refining complex at Jamnagar in western India, will invest USD10.1 billion in clean energy over three years in a pursuit to become a net carbon zero company by 2035, reported Reuters.
Reliance's plan mirrors strategies of global oil majors such as Royal Dutch Shell Plc and BP Plc that have set a goal to become net zero carbon by 2050 amid pressure from investors and climate activists.
"The world is entering a new energy era, which is going to be highly disruptive. The age of fossil fuels, which powered economic growth globally for nearly three centuries, cannot continue much longer," Chairman Mukesh Ambani, Asia's richest man, said at a shareholder meeting on Thursday.
The oil-to-telecoms conglomerate will invest 600 billion rupees to build four 'giga factories' at Jamnagar for production of solar cells and module, energy storage batteries, fuel cells and green hydrogen, Ambani said. It will also invest 150 billion rupees in value chain and other partnerships relating to its new renewable energy business, he said, adding a transformation of legacy business into sustainable and net zero carbon business will provide growing returns over several decades.
Reliance will also build solar capacities of at least 100 gigawatts (GW) by 2030, accounting for over a fifth of India's target of installing 450 GW by the end of this decade.
Reliance's entry into the renewable energy business in India will put it in competition with companies such as Adani Green Energy Ltd and Goldman Sachs-backed ReNew Power.
As MRC informed before, amid a surging second wave of COVID-19 in the country, RIL has increased output of medical oxygen to 1,000 mt/day, making it India's largest producer of medical-grade liquid oxygen from a single location. Reliance ramped up production from near-zero to 1,000 tonnes per day and now produces over 11% of the country's oxygen demand. It has rallied its resources to meet the daily need of over 1 lakh people every day.
Ethylene and propylene are the main feedstocks for the production of polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP), respectively.
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 744,130 tonnes in the first four month of 2021, up by 4% year on year. Shipments of all PE grades increased. At the same time, PP deliveries to the Russian market were 523,900 tonnes in January-April 2021, up by 55% year on year. Supply of homopolymer PP and PP block copolymers increased, whereas shipments of PP random copolymers decreased.
Reliance Industries is one of the world's largest producers of polymers. The company produces polypropylene, polyethylene and polyvinyl chloride and other petrochemical products.
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