RIL to invest $27 bn in next four years, says report

Reliance Industries (RIL) plans to invest about $27 billion in next four years across its core oil and gas and petrochemical businesses as also new ventures like telecom.

According to a Deutsche Bank AG report issued after its analysts met one of the company's two joint chief financial officers (CFOs), "RIL is at the cusp of its next capex cycle

as it invests $27 billion over 2013-14 to 2016-17 fiscal."

About 85 per cent of the capex will be in its core business, the report said.

RIL will spend $11 billion in oil and gas exploration including US shale gas venture and $4 billion in refining business.

Another $8 billion is planned in petrochemical projects while $3 billion would go into its yet to be launched telecom venture. The rest $1 billion would go into retail business, it said.

RIL Chairman and Managing Director Mukesh Ambani had last year announced plans to invest Rs 100,000 crore across energy, retail and telecom businesses in the next five years to double operating profit.

It is in the process of getting regulatory nod for putting to production newer and satellite gas fields to arrest the decline in output from the main fields on the KG-D6 block.

RIL is investing $8 billion, the most since it completed a second oil refinery in 2008, in expansion of its petrochemical business to meet rising demand of plastics and polyester.

Also, it is setting up a $4 billion petroleum coke gasification project that will produce synthetic natural gas that will replace expensive LNG as fuel.

"After our detailed meeting with the Joint CFO of RIL, we came out more convinced on our bullish view on RIL," the report said.

"Our positive view on RIL is premised on expectation of approval for gas price increase in FY14, approvals for KGD6 R-Series and NEC-25 development plans in FY14 improving visibility on monetisation of these discoveries, and start of a new capex cycle," it said.

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