DMEA: Aramco denies deal is dead

Saudi Aramco’s president and CEO this week rejected that talks for a major downstream tie-up between the company and India’s Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) had been scrapped. Speaking to Arab News, Amin Nasser said that the talks had been paused while Reliance carries out a restructuring process, adding that they would “continue to discuss further with them in the future after they finish the restructuring”.

Aramco has been discussing a deal to acquire a 20% stake in Reliance’s spun-off oil-to-chemicals (O2C) division for around $15bn since 2019, but the Indian firm reported last week that “due to [the] evolving nature of Reliance’s business portfolio, Reliance and Saudi Aramco have mutually determined that it would be beneficial for both parties to re-evaluate the proposed investment in O2C business in light of the changed context”.

The deal had been expected to take the form of an all-stock deal and would have given Aramco a minority stake in Reliance’s 1.82mn barrel per day (bpd) refining slate which includes the world’s largest refining complex at Jamnagar and another sizeable facility located within the Jamnagar Special Economic Zone, as well as its 38.4mn tonne per year (tpy) petrochemicals capacity. This would add 364,000 bpd and 7.7mn tpy to the company’s net global refining and petchem capacities.

Denial appears to be a recurring theme this week, with the Kenyan government also detracting from reports that it has already begun the process of land acquisition in Turkana County for the Lokichar-Lamu Crude Oil Pipeline (LLCOP) project, a component of the Lamu Port-South Sudan Ethiopia Transport Corridor (LAPSSET) initiative.

James Long’ole, the National Land Commission (NLC) co-ordinator for Turkana, took note last week of reports that government officials had already identified 516 landowners who would be affected by LLCOP. These reports are incorrect, and the number 516 refers to something else, he was quoted as saying by The Nation.

“There has been a widespread falsehood that ... we already have 516 landowners. The 516 is the number of co-ordinates within the three gazetted oilfields. Amosing has 180 coordinates, Twiga has 106, and Ngamia has 230,” he said, referring to three fields within the licence areas assigned to Tullow Oil (UK/Ireland). “The process of identifying project-affected persons [has] not yet commenced.”