Mukesh Ambani led, Reliance Industries Ltd., is now the world’s second-biggest energy firm only after Saudi Aramco. Reliance overshadowed ExxonMobil Corp. as investors accumulated to invest into the Indian conglomerate attracted by the firm’s expanding digital and retail arms including Jio.
Asia’s richest man controlled Reliance Industries, which manages the world’s biggest refinery complex, the share price has increased by more than 43% in 2020 as compared to the 39% fall in the prices of ExxonMobil Corp., former second and now third-largest energy company. On Friday, the Ambani led organisation gained around 4.3%; thus, adding $8 billion to the market value of the company and taking it to a huge $189 billion. In comparison, ExxonMobil Corp. has lost about $1 billion in market value due to the plunge in share price amid oil refiners in the world hassling due to a drop in oil prices.
Reliance’s oil business is now only behind the global refinery and energy pioneer, Saudi Aramco, which has a market cap of $1.76 trillion, far ahead of the second largest. Although the Reliance’s energy operations accounted for about 80% of its revenue for the year ended March 31, 2020, Mukesh Ambani is trying to expand his business in the digital and retail areas. The company’s digital and retail venture, Jio Platforms Ltd. has attracted more than $20 billion so far from the giants like Google, Facebook, KKR, Vista, Silver Lake, and many more in a short span of 2-3 months.
The 63-year-old Mukesh Ambani, Chairman Reliance Ltd, inherited the energy business from his father Dhirubhai Ambani, who died in 2002. Thereafter, Mukesh has helmed the company like a pro, and the tycoon has expanded his hand in technology and retail through his visionary view.
The recent investments also aided the Ambani to increase about $22.3 billion and become the fifth richest man in the world in the Bloomberg Billionaire Index. Earlier, he announced to make Reliance Industries a debt-free organisation which had a total debt of around Rs. 1610 billion by March 31, 2021, and he was able to achieve his target in just 58 days by luring in investments of more than 1688 billion rupees (Indian Currency).
In the meantime, globally, the demand for large scale oil plunged by more than one-third of regular usage or around 30 million barrels per day, in April, which drove the energy firm market into chaos in the second quarter. Although the situation has started to recover now, the OPEC production cuts, millions of crude barrels unsold every day, destroying refinery margins, and one of the worst oil prices have damaged the energy giants ExxonMobil Corp. and Chevron Corp.