APPEC INTERVIEW: Reliance banks on Jamnagar refinery's flexibility to weather crude shocks

India's Reliance Industries Ltd. can process crude from diverse regions thanks to the advanced configuration and scale of its Jamnagar complex — a flexibility that will help it manage future supply disruptions along key shipping routes such as the Strait of Hormuz, Debangsu Ray, cluster president and head of the Jamnagar Refinery and Petrochemical Supersite, said Sept. 8 during APPEC 2026.

Ray added that the Asia-Pacific region, which normally sources substantial volumes of crude oil from the Middle East, had felt the greatest impact on energy flows due to disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz, compared with other regions.

"The oil market is global in nature, and supply disruptions have adverse consequences for the world. The crude oil slate of the Jamnagar refinery has always been diverse. This gave us the ability to source feedstock from different regions and tide us over the current crisis, and it can also help to serve us in the future," Ray told Platts, part of S&P Global Energy.

About 75% of Asia's crude oil imports from the Middle East transited the Strait of Hormuz in 2025, according to S&P Global Energy CERA. By the third quarter of 2026, that share had fallen sharply, fluctuating between 10% and 20%, ship-tracking data from S&P Global Commodities at Sea showed.

Ray said the Jamnagar refinery's Nelson Complexity Index of 21.1 — the highest in the world — gives the asset the versatility to process almost all crude oil grades and meet the increasingly differentiated, more demanding product specifications of global markets.

The refining complex, with 1.4 million barrels/day of crude processing capacity, has so far processed more than 240 different grades of crude oil, Ray added.

Leading refining hub

Ray said India has established itself as a leading refining hub, balancing strong domestic demand with exports to various regions. At a time when the refining industry is facing a margin squeeze, new, more sophisticated refineries in the Middle East and China are intensifying competition.

"Our emphasis will continue to be on deep petrochemicals integration, optimized logistics, energy self-sufficiency and efficiency and disciplined cost management across the entire value chain, supported by our agility and global footprint in petroleum product marketing," Ray said.

Ray reiterated that meeting demand for oil products in India's fast-growing, price-sensitive domestic market is the biggest priority. Reliance's dual-refinery setup ensures local demand is met first, with export volumes adjusted dynamically in response to seasonal shifts.

While past predictions of rapid declines in transport fuel demand had not materialized, the transition is likely to be gradual, he said.

India's energy transition would be unique because the country still has enormous mobility growth ahead and has not yet reached peak transport fuel demand, he added. Given India's robust GDP growth, domestic demand for conventional transport fuels is expected to continue rising well into the next decade before plateauing.

"The closure of several older refineries in the world will reduce the supply of transport fuels, which will have to be filled up by existing complex refineries. Technological pathways to reduce transport fuels and increase petrochemicals production are already available and are maturing, with a few small-scale units in operation," Ray said. "These include crude-to-chemicals and multizone catalytic cracking with selectivity toward higher olefinic yields."

However, these options would require multi-billion-dollar investments, he added.

"We will continue to monitor supply and demand balances, progress on the technological pathways and calibrate our strategy. We have plans for value addition through increased petrochemicals production. Being a well-established, large player in the petrochemicals business, we will be able to move quickly," Ray said.

Embracing energy transition

Looking ahead, Ray described the future path of the Jamnagar complex's transformation — from a traditional fuel refinery into an integrated energy and materials complex — as Reliance seeks to balance capital allocation between maintaining its core refining strength and scaling up its new energy gigafactories.

"The next chapter for Jamnagar is about multidimensional integration. The primary capital allocation shall follow two mega-trends: deep petrochemicals expansion and world-scale green energy manufacturing," Ray said. "By placing solar, bioenergy and advanced energy storage ecosystems in close proximity to our refining footprint, we will create a symbiotic loop where clean energy powers low-carbon refining, which in turn yields the high-tech materials needed for the transition."

He added that Reliance is actively co-processing bio and circular feedstocks and scaling up its infrastructure to meet the government's accelerated ethanol and biodiesel blending mandates.

"With our planned integration of green hydrogen into our hydrotreating blocks and maximizing chemical conversion, we will supplement revenue growth from long-term fossil fuel demand," Ray said.

Decarbonizing Jamnagar's vast operations would be a monumental engineering challenge, requiring a comprehensive approach, he added.

"We are targeting substantial emissions reductions through three distinct pillars. First, we will progressively replace internal, fossil-based process heating and captive power with renewable power and green hydrogen. Second, we are scaling up the co-processing of biomass in our gasifiers and retrofitting our hydrotreaters for partial processing of renewable bio-oil feed. Finally, we are laying the technical groundwork for carbon capture and utilization — converting captured carbon dioxide into industrial chemical building blocks," Ray said.

He added that the key to the cost competitiveness of green hydrogen lies in the convergence of factors such as technological breakthroughs, demand scale and supportive mandates. Conventional hydrogen produced via steam methane reforming currently costs about $1.5-$2.0/kg, while green hydrogen costs about $2.5-$4/kg.

"The rapid adoption of green hydrogen (or ammonia) in countries and regions such as Japan and Europe can help in reducing costs. Also, increased solar energy generation and integration with large grids could cut the production cost of green hydrogen," Ray said. "We are hopeful that green hydrogen costs will become competitive compared with conventional hydrogen costs sooner than later."