Reliance Industries will fulfill the $15 billion oil deal with Saudi Aramco - the Saudi Arabian Oil Company - this year, Mukesh Ambani said at the 44th Annual General Meeting of Reliance Industries on Thursday. The announcement was made following the announcement of the induction of Yasir Al Rumayyan, chairman of Saudi Aramco, on the board of Reliance Industries as an independent director.

Yasir Al Rumayyan, 51, Saudi Aramco chairman and Governor of the Kingdom's wealth fund, Public Investment Fund, who was inducted as an independent director in Reliance Industries, will replace Yogendra P Trivedi, 92, who has expressed his desire to retire, Ambani, India's richest man and one of the world's wealthiest, said.

"He (Yasir Al Rumayyan) is one of the most renowned names in energy finance and technology globally. I am sure that we will immensely benefit from his rich experience with one of the world's largest companies, and also one of the largest sovereign wealth funds in the world," Ambani said.

“His joining marks the beginning of the internationalization of Reliance,” Ambani said 

According to the deal, Reliance Industries will offload a 20 per cent stake in its oil-to-chemicals business, comprising oil refineries at Jamnagar in Gujarat and petrochemical assets, to Dhahran=based Aramco, the world's largest oil exporter.

The stake sale had been agreed upon in 2019, but no action on the deal was taken as oil demand and prices crashed due to the pandemic last year.

Over the past years, Reliance Industries separated its businesses into different verticals - Jio Platforms - the company's digital and telecom arm, retail unit, and oil refining and petrochemical segments were housed into the O2C vertical to bring onboard strategic partnerships.

"Our O2C business faced unprecedented challenges by severe economic contraction at the beginning of year. Yet we were probably the only company globally that operated at near full capacity and was profitable in every quarter,"  Ambani added.(SAM)