World’s biggest refinery gears up for EV future

The company is preparing its Jamnagar complex, the world’s largest refinery at a single location, to be future ready as fuel demand undergoes change with advent of electric vehicles.

“Jamnagar shall be the refinery icon of the world with best-in-class performance,” the company said in its latest annual report outlining its vision.

The firm’s mission is to “ensure the Jamnagar refinery is future-ready with a strategic transformation to optimal oil-to-chemicals.”

Its refineries currently convert crude oil, sourced from around the globe, into petrol, diesel, LPG, aviation turbine fuel (ATF), LPG, naphtha and other value added fuels.

Some of these products are used to produce petrochemicals used for making plastics and other products.

Now, it is implementing a strategy that will convert the crude oil only into petrochemicals and ATF used in aeroplanes.

“Reliance has developed a future-ready Oil-to-Chemical strategic vision to progressively transform the Jamnagar refinery from a leading producer of fuels to chemicals,” it said in the annual report.

“The oil-to-chemical programme is a roadmap implemented over a long time horizon, based on market outlook and price triggers for refinery fuel products. The ultimate goal is to achieve greater than 70 per cent conversion of crude refined in Jamnagar, to competitive chemical building blocks of olefins and aromatics,” it said.