The world’s biggest oil refining complex is owned by Reliance Industries in Jamnagar, India.
Photographer: Dhiraj Singh/BloombergAsia’s Wealthiest Man Is Going Green But Still Gets Rich Off Oil
Asia’s richest man is joining the clean energy business, building solar and hydrogen plants right next door to the sprawling fossil fuels complex that’s helped deliver his vast wealth.
Along the Arabian Sea, the Indian city of Jamnagar is a money-making machine for Asia’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani, processing crude oil into fuel, plastics and chemicals. It’s also where the billionaire is making his newest bet: a $10 billion investment in green energy.
In a swath of arid land, to the city’s southwest, Ambani’s Reliance Industries Ltd., owns the world’s biggest oil refining complex. It’s a sprawling network of plants and pipelines that can process 1.4 million barrels of petroleum a day in an operation covering half the area of Manhattan. In fiscal 2021, Reliance generated about 45 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions from its own operations, which puts the company among the top such emitters in India, according to data on other companies tracked by Bloomberg. Much of that came from its Jamnagar refineries.