Indian conglomerate and one of the country's largest oil refiners, worth roughly $200bn and second in value only to the Tata Group. It runs the world's biggest oil refinery, with about 1.5% of global processing capacity, and accounts for around a third of India's natural-gas production. Jio, its telecoms arm, is the world's second-biggest mobile operator and is being spun off in what is expected to be India's largest-ever IPO (valuation $130bn-$150bn, raising roughly $3.5bn). Founded in the 1950s by Dhirubhai Ambani as a small commodities trader. The conglomerate's retail arm has more than 19,000 stores. Reliance Intelligence, an AI subsidiary launched in August 2025, took a roughly one-third investment from Meta in December 2025. In February 2026 the group pledged $110bn for data centres over seven years; a multi-gigawatt facility is being built in Jamnagar. Reliance also runs gigafactories in Jamnagar for solar panels, batteries and green hydrogen, serving a 550,000-acre solar park (about three times the size of Singapore). Reliance has long benefited from geopolitical flexibility: while much of the world shunned Russia's oil after the invasion of Ukraine, Reliance picked up barrels at a deep discount. Other major Indian refiners include Nayara Energy (part-owned by Rosneft), Indian Oil Corporation, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum.
Before the Gulf war, India got around 2.5m barrels a day—roughly half its imports—from the Middle East, chiefly Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz halved that supply.
In February 2026 Reliance secured a licence from America to receive oil from Venezuela. The company has denied reports that it has bought Iranian oil. Many Indian refiners can switch to processing low-quality, high-sulphur oil instead of the Gulf's lighter grades.
Successful and fortunate crime is called virtue.