Reliance Industries Ltd said on Friday its plan to close the deal to sell a 20 per cent stake in its oil to chemicals business for $15 billion to Saudi Aramco will miss the March 31 timeline announced earlier.

The deal was announced in August 2019.

“It will not be a deal which will get done by March,” RIL’s joint chief financial officer V Srikanth told media on Friday.

“The deal is making very good progress, but it’s a large transaction/large cross-border deal which is complex. I cannot comment on the timeline,” he said.

“Definitive agreements are something we are trying to do,” he added.

RIL signed a non-binding letter of intent with the Saudi oil company in August last year to sell a 20 per cent stake in the oil to chemicals business of Reliance Industries for as much as ₹1.03 lakh crore or roughly $15 billion.

The RIL-Aramco deal will be the biggest foreign investment in “the history of Reliance” and amongst the largest foreign investments into India,

Chairman and Managing Director Mukesh Ambani said on August 12, adding that “the coming year will mark the beginning of the most ambitious value creation strategy in the history of Reliance” at the heart of which is the “innovative philosophy of transforming relationships into partnerships” with “leading global and Indian companies”.

As part of the deal with RIL, Aramco will supply up to 700 (KBPD) or 500,000 barrels per day of crude oil on a long-term basis to the Jamnagar refinery.

“We expect to complete these transactions within this financial year subject to due diligence, definitive agreements, and regulatory and other customary approvals,” Ambani stated in August.

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