Mukesh Ambani to meet Chevron Chief for JV

New Delhi, Feb 20: Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) Chairman MukeshAmbani will meet chief of US oil major Chevron David O'Reilly Fridayand chalk plans to jointly work in energy exploration from deep seasand producing bio-fuels for running automobiles.

The US-based company is also expected to raise its stake to 29 percent in Reliance Petroleum Ltd, a Reliance Industries subsidiary thatis setting up a 5,80,000 barrels a day export refinery at Jamnagaradjacent to the parent company's existing unit.

Last year, Chevron had picked up five per cent stake in ReliancePetroleum for 300 million dollars. A partnership in Reliance's gas findin the Krishna-Godavari basin off the Andhra coast is also on theanvil.

Reliance is scheduled to pump gas from the basin and is expectedto supply 80 million cubic metres a day of gas at its peak productioncapacity, which will be more than half of the domestic production.

For gas to be pumped out from over 2,000 metres below the seabed, Chevron's knowhow in this field would come in handy.

Possible joint venture in producing biofuels, particularly ethanolwill also be explored with Chevron, the biggest bio-fuel producer amongthe world's oil majors.

Reliance is also looking for acquiring 10,000 acres of sugar cane fields in Brazil.

Chevron has committed to spend 25 million dollars in research in biofuels over the next five years.

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