Reliance Petroleum Limited (RPL), a Mukesh Ambani led Reliance Group company was set up to harness an emerging value creation opportunity in the global refining sector by Reliance Industries, one of the India's largest private sector company with a significant presence across the entire energy chain and a global leadership across key product segments. Currently, RPL is subsidiary of RIL.

RPL was formed to set up a greenfield petroleum refinery and polypropylene plant in the Special Economic Zone (SEZ) at Jamnagar in Gujarat. This global sized, highly complex refinery is being located adjacent to RIL's existing refinery and petrochemicals complex, which is amongst the largest and most efficient in the world, thus offering significant synergies.

The commissioning of the RPL refinery catapults Reliance into the league of the largest refiners globally, both in terms of complex refining capacity and earnings potential. With the completion of the RPL refinery, Jamnagar has emerged as the ‘Refining Hub of the World’ with the largest refining complex with an aggregate refining capacity of 1.24 million barrels of oil per day in any single location in the world.

The state-of-the-art, globally competitive RPL refinery has been completed in 36 months from concept to commissioning, which is a new benchmark for building a grass-root refinery of this scale and complexity. This refinery has been built with a significant capital cost competitive advantage. This record has been achieved in spite of the significant shortfall in engineering and construction resources that has impacted most other refinery projects globally. RPL achieved the milestone by leveraging the project management skills of the Reliance group together with world-class implementation partners like Bechtel, UOP and Foster Wheeler amongst others.

The Reliance Group, founded by Dhirubhai H. Ambani (1932-2002), is India's largest private sector enterprise, with businesses in the energy and materials value chain. Group's annual revenues are in excess of $ 34 billion. The flagship company, Reliance Industries Limited, is a Fortune Global 500 company and is the largest private sector company in India.

The Group's activities span exploration and production of oil and gas, petroleum refining and marketing, petrochemicals (polyester, fibre intermediates, plastics and chemicals), textiles and retail.

Reliance enjoys global leadership in its businesses, being the largest polyester yarn and fibre producer in the world and among the top five to ten producers in the world in major petrochemical products.

The Group exports products in excess of US$ 20 billion to 108 countries in the world. Major Group Companies are Reliance Industries Limited (including main subsidiaries Reliance Petroleum Limited and Reliance Retail Limited) and Reliance Industrial Infrastructure Limited.

On March 2, 2009 the Boards of Directors of Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) and Reliance Petroleum Limited (RPL) unanimously approved RPL’s merger with RIL, subject to necessary approvals. The exchange ratio recommended by both boards is 1 (one) share of RIL for every 16 (sixteen) shares of RPL. RIL will issue 6.92 crore new shares, thereby increasing its equity capital to Rs 1,643 crore.

On April 13, 2009, the shareholders and the creditors of Reliance Petroleum Limited (RPL) approved the Scheme of Amalgamation of RPL with Reliance Industries Limited (RIL).

Points given in the favour of merger

The merger will unlock significant operational and financial synergies that exist between RIL and RPL. It creates a platform for value-enhancing growth and reinforces RIL’s position as an integrated global energy company.

The merger will enhance value for shareholders of both companies. The merger is EPS accretive for RIL. Through this merger, RIL consolidates a world-class, complex refinery with minimal residual project risk, while complementing RIL’s product range. There will be further gains from reduced operating costs arising from synergies of a combined operation.