Sources say that RIL has intimated to the government their interest to generate and distribute nuclear power. The recent US-India civil nuclear deal has paved the way for several companies to consider entering the nuclear energy business.

RIL is believed to be talking to Bechtel Corporation, the engineering, construction and project management giant, based in the US, for a possible collaboration in this regard. Although nuclear plans are still at an early stage for RIL, they are reportedly doing a feasibility study regarding the move.

Recently the non-compete pact that existed between the Ambani brothers had been annulled, and RIL is now free to enter in the power market among other businesses.

According to the regulations currently in place, private Indian firms can be a minority partner in nuclear power projects. The government will retain 51per cent equity stake through its nuclear divisions – NPCIL (Nuclear Power Corporation of India) or BHAVINI (Bharatiya Nabhikiya Vidyut Nigam), which are the only two authorized to build nuclear plants in the country. NTPC was the first power company to have entered into a joint venture pact with NPCIL to execute nuclear power projects. RIL is expected to follow NTPC’s lead of having 49 per cent stake of the joint venture. RIL’s entry into this market would make it the first investment in this sector that is coming from a private firm.

RIL is already associated with Bechtel, on the KG-D6 Bay of Bengal deepwater gas field development, and on the construction of their Jamnagar refinery.

Bechtel is the company that designed and built almost half of the nuclear power plants in the US. It was named the top US contractor, a status that has been steady for 12 consecutive years, by Engineering News-Record (ENR).

India’s aim is to have the capacity to generate 10, 080 mw by 2017, and crucially needs private investment to make this a reality. At present, nuclear power capacity stands at 4,560mw.?

LyondellBasell, the Dutch-American company, was owned by Russia-born business magnate Leonard Blavatnik.

The US operations of LyondellBasell had sought bankruptcy protection in January 2009, after being plagued by liquidity problems as well as a weak demand owing to the global economic recession.

LyondellBasell also filed a reorganisation plan in September 2009, aimed at emerging from bankruptcy in early 2010.

Reliance Industries Limited has reportedly offered $12 billion (£7.2 billion) to buy a controlling stake in LyondellBasell.

Access Industries, the holding company of Leonard Blavatnik, may take part in a $2.5-billion rights offering, which would finance LyondellBasell Industries to come out of bankruptcy.

In a press release, Reliance Industries Limited, run by Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani, said that the offer is preliminary and that it is subject to “customary conditions,” including “conduct of due diligence, documentation and receipt of sufficient creditor support.”

Reliance Industries also revealed that it is “reviewing” a number of “global opportunities” to increase its core business.

This review, the press release added, is now under way, and there is no assurance of the results regarding any of the “opportunities under review,” including in the case of LyondellBasell.

According to analysts, the $12-billion (£7.2 billion) bid by Reliance Industries Limited for LyondellBasell Industries has many obstacles in the way since the bid has to make its way through the bankruptcy court.

If and when it materializes, the deal would create one of the biggest energy and chemicals groups in the world, with around $80 billion in combined annual revenues.

In a statement, LyondellBasell said the bid by Reliance Industries Limited to buy a controlling stake in the chemical manufacturer is one of several non-binding offers received from other firms earlier.

A spokesman of LyondellBasell described the bid by Reliance Industries as “a potential alternative among many bids” and that the offer by Reliance is in addition to the equity non-binding offers received from others.

LyondellBasell was set up in 2007 when Basell International Holdings BV, based in the Netherlands, paid $12.7 billion to buy Lyondell Chemical Company, headquartered in Houston, Texas, the United States.

This is the company’s second oil major find after the offshore oilfield in the Krishna-Godavari basin.

The new oil find is expected to help increase domestic fuel supplies.

In a statement, Reliance Industries said that it struck oil in the 5th well it drilled on the 635-square-kilometre CB-ONN-2003/1 block in the Cambay Basin, located about 130 kilometres from Ahmedabad, in Gujarat.

Reliance Industries holds 100% participating interest (PI) in CB-ONN-2003/1 block.

The block, spread over an area of 635 square kilometers, has two parts – Part A situated in the west, with an area of 570 square kilometres, and Part B lying to the east, having an area of 65 square kilometres.

The company did not, however, disclose how much reserves the new oilfield might hold.

The CB-ONN-2003/1 block was awarded to Reliance Industries Limited in the 5th round of bidding under the New Exploration Licensing Policy (NELP).

Reliance Industries Limited, the most valuable company in India, holds 100% participating interest in the CB-ONN-2003/1 block.

The statement from Reliance Industries said that the 5th well on the Cambay onland block – CB10A-A1 – was drilled to a depth of 1451 metres. The well gave out around 500 barrels of oil a day at the time of conventional testing.

According to the company, the new oil find – named ‘Dhirubhai-43’ – is expected to open “future potential within the block” and that the commercial viability of this discovery is being established through gathering more data and though analysis.

RIL said that while the 3D Seismic data has been obtained over 80% of the area in the block, the 2D Seismic data from the entire area has been received.

It may be noted that Reliance Industries Limited, the largest operator of gasfield in India, had not taken part in an auction of 70 oil and gas blocks held in 2009, for which 36 bids had been received.

Earlier, the company had come across reserves of crude oil in the mainly gas-rich KG D-6 block, off India’s east coast. The Mukesh Ambani Field (MA Field), which started production in September 2008, at present yields about 11,000 barrels of crude oil a day.

Reliance Industries is the biggest conglomerate in India, with interests in oil refining, petrochemicals, exploration of oil and gas, and retailing.

India imports over 75% of crude oil it requires.

According to analysts, the country’s production of crude output is likely to increase by 11% to 36.7 million metric tones in 2009, thanks to the starting of production at an oilfield in Rajasthan that is operated by Cairn India Limited.

Reliance Industries Limited, India’s biggest company by market value, said its 2009-2010 fiscal second quarter profit fell 6.4 percent to 3,852 crore rupees on lower refining earnings. This is the fourth straight decline in quarterly profit reported by the company as a global recession weakened fuel demand.

Mumbai-based Reliance said its net profit in the three months ended September 30 fell to 3,852 crore from 4,116 crore rupees a year ago, its fourth straight decline in quarterly profit. Sales rose to 46,848 crore from 44,688 crore rupees last year, Reliance said in a statement posted on its web site.

Reliance Industries, which operates the world’s largest refining complex, reported a 51 percent drop in the revenue it earns from processing each barrel of crude as oil prices fell from last year’s record highs. The company owned is Mukesh Ambani, India’s richest man, is investing in exploration to cut depended on refining.

The company started producing gas from KG D6, its biggest discovery off India’s eastern coast, in April. Reliance said it produced 40 million standard cubic metres of gas from the find in the six months to September.

The refiner earned $6 on every barrel of crude turned into fuels in the September quarter compared with $13.4 a barrel a year ago. Global refining margins have fallen to $3.42 a barrel in the quarter compared with $6.20 last year, according to BP Plc data.

Earnings from Reliance’s petrochemicals business rose 16 percent in the quarter on higher demand and help from a fall in the rupee, the company said.

Reliance said it earned $7.5 billion in the six months to September from exports of fuels from its refinery located at Jamnagar in Gujarat. It exported for about 13.2 million tonnes of fuels compared with 11 million tonnes last year, the company said.

The company’s outstanding debt as on September 30, 2009 was 71,349 crore rupees against 73,904 crore on March 31, 2009, Reliance said. The company, which has the highest weightage on the Bombay Stock Exchange’s 30-share Sensitive Index Sensex, offered stockholders a bonus of one share for each equity share owned in Reliance earlier this month.

Reliance Industries fell over 1 percent on Friday morning trading, a day after it posted it released its quarterly reports for Q2 2009.

His body was discovered on the rail tracks between Vile Parle and Andheri early on Tuesday morning. Bharat Borge was run over by a suburban train on way to Churchgate.
The police initially registered it as a case of accidental death. Later, the identity of the person, Bharat Borge was proven, and a letter to the investigating authorities was also found. The letter, purportedly written by Bharat Borge said that he was under mental pressure following the incident, and if anyone found the letter,it should be forwarded to the investigators.

Pebbles and mud in Anil Ambani’s helicopter was discovered last week, when Bharat Borge checked the copter before it was to carry Anil Ambani. The copter is operated and maintained by Air Works. Following the incident, the Anil Ambani group (Reliance ADAG) filed a complaint with the police, charging attempt to murder the company’s billionaire chairman.

The conspiracy angle was being probed by the Mumbai police when the death of Bharat Borge added a twist of conspiracy into the whole story. Bharat Borge, who was witness first, had become a suspect during the course of the investigation. He, along with many other employees of the Air Works, were prohibited from entering the company’s premises following the incident.

The police have still not made any comment about whether Bharat Borge’s death was a case of accident, suicide, or murder.

However, the discovery of his body on tracks just a few days after the Anil Ambani copter sabotage incident is sure to raise conspiracy theories in the days to come.

“The company plans to raise output from the deep-sea field in the Bay of Bengal by 10 mmscmd a month, reaching peak production of 80 mmscmd by the end of this year.” P.M.S. Prasad, the chief executive of Reliance’s oil and gas business said.

“We are signing 15 contracts with 12 companies and the volumes are about 15 mmscmd.” he added.

The gas will start filling the pipes in a couple of days and Reliance Industries will start supplying the gas from KG basin by mid April 2009.

RIL will start the production at about 10-12 million standard cubic meters per day of gas when it commences in April, and by mid-July, will increase the production to 40 million standard cubic meters per day and then reach the peak production of 80 million standard cubic meters per day in an year.

Against the current demand of 190 million standard cubic meters per day of gas in India, the supply of 80 mmscmd falls short of India’s full requirement by 110 mmscmd and gas production from the RIl KG basin D6 block will help cut down the gap between the supply and demand.

As per the production sharing deal with the state, the company will be paying 10 per cent as profit petroleum to the government. Oil companies do this in order to comply with the regulations governing India’s oil and gas exploration policy.

We had first written about Reliance’s KG basin project in 2006.

This is Reliance Power’s third contract in a row, after Sasan in Madhya Pradesh and Krishnapatnam in Andhra Pradesh.

Reliance bid for an amount of 1.77 Rs. per unit, leaving behind other competitors like NTPC who bid for 2.34 Rs. per unit and Jindal Steel and Power Limited who bid 2.67 per unit. The other bidders included Vedanta group and Sterlite and Lanco. The bid by Reliance Power as per analyst is a very aggressive bid as the gap between the top two is comprehensive, although this bid is bigger than the 1.19 per unit made for the Sasan project.

Initially, eleven companies were qualified for the Tilaiya UMPP project, but due to the continuing worldwide slowdown credit crisis saw many back away from the bid. Those who backed out include companies like Tata Power, Essar Power and Larsen & Tubro.

“Given the turmoil in the global markets, it would take more time before conditions are conducive for financing such large projects,” Lanco Infratech which withdrew from the bidding said in a statement to the Bombay Stock Exchange after coming out as the highest bidder.

The Tilaiya project is assumed to be cheaper than the Sasan project as there is a slide in steel price and the ease which Jarkhand coal mines provides. The project will use domestic coal which will be mined from a captive expanse that will be allocated for the project developers. The complete project will cost somewhere around 16000-17000 crores with a debt equity ratio of 70:30.

The coal mine in Jharkhand is estimated to have 972 million tones of coal reserves which is 86% more than what is required for the plan and will help the project all the more. Reliance Power will need to dig 2 tones of earth to mine out 1 tone of coal.

An I-sec report recently said that any tariff of above 1.70 per unit will be a profitable bid which will also be helped by low input costs.

“We expect the contract to be signed in a month,” the PFC official said. The bids were started by a high-level committee inclusive of representatives from the governments of Bihar and Jharkhand

Once the results are out officially the Reliance Power will be officially making use of the services provided by the Jharkhand Integrated Power limited, as they will be equipped with special purpose vehicle for the Tilaiya project.

The government intended to complete the bidding of Tilaiya UMPP project before June 2007 and give away 5 other UMPP’s over the next few months which could be delayed now due to issues like establishment of an appropriate site, access to water resource and other mandatory clearances.

India needs to spend $600 billion on adding capacity to meet electricity demand, which may triple to 335,000 megawatts by 2017 if the country’s economy maintains its current pace of growth, McKinsey & Co. said in June 2008.

The MDU is a customized DTH solution targeted to tap various sections of housing societies, commercial complexes and new townships where a single dish antenna can provide the DTH connection to multiple households. This circumvents the need for installing individual dish antennas for every household connection.

BIG TV has already bagged 1 million subscribers in a short span of 90 days and now plans to drive large group deals in residential clusters, hospitality businesses and business parks through the MDU installations. The company is targeting a market share of 40% per cent in the MDU segment within the first year of operations.

According to Mahesh Prasad, President – Reliance Communications, “MDUs are a natural extension of a DTH service. Our MDU service offers a perfect solution to residential complexes which are not too keen to have too many dish antennas peeking out of balconies and where the Line of Sight to the satellite is not very clear. As part of our marketing and sales strategy, the MDU service will help generate volumes in residential clusters.”

Big TV will provide the MDU connection to the entire residential complex through a single large dish antenna linked to individual Set Top Boxes (STBs) in various households within the premises.  The MDU dish size varies between 90 cms and 120 cms depending on the number of households it services. The cost of hardware will be borne by BIG TV. Each household participating in the scheme gets one STB as a part of BIG TV’s MDU scheme.

Despite the common dish antenna being installed, each household will have the freedom to choose their own channel package including the free regional pack offered with the inaugural channel pack. Subscribers will also have the option of opting for any of the various entry offers that are available for them to choose from.

As part of its aggressive push to generate MDU volumes, BIG TV has set-up a dedicated pan-India network of 350 direct sales agents and 500 member installation team to handle MDU business. BIG TV has already installed MDUs at over 1,500 locations and close to 4,000 locations are in the installation process.

The company has also kicked off a series of road shows across India as part of its marketing efforts to generate awareness and drive subscription sales in these markets.

With this the company has bagged market share of 15 per cent in just 3 months in the fast-evolving Indian DTH sector, which is nearly 60 months old in India.

The company attributes the achievement to the faith of millions of Indian consumers in the Reliance brand. “Our customer-centric approach coupled with advanced technology, superior product and service with a wide distribution and installation service network spanning the country helped Big TV cross the million milestone in such a short span of time,” Mahesh Prasad, President, Reliance Communications, said.

Big TV has, in the meantime, brought in a slew of user–friendly features to enhance the overall viewing experience . This includes the state of the art graphical user interface and Electronic Program Guide (EPG).

Claiming to be the country’s first fully digital home entertainment service using MPEG-4 platform on a national scale, BIG TV runs on an advanced MPEG4 DTH technology platform that enables it to offer over 200 TV, cinema and audio channels. This incidentally is said to be the highest by any DTH operator in the country. As many as 32 movie channels in English, Hindi and regional languages makes it possible for the Big TV customer to choose from 600 new movies every year, the company said.

Adding that the country’s largest on-ground infrastructure for a home entertainment has been created by Big TV, it said that the infrastructure would enable the company to serve over millions of new customers every year and offer multiple price points and packaging offers to suit needs of all customer segments.

Beside, the state-of-the-art customer service mechanism has been fully functional and ready to serve its increasing customer base every day in 11 Indian languages.

Reliance Big TV’s major competirors in India are Tata Sky and Zee Group owned DishTV. Another recent entrant to the fray is Bharti Airtel with its Airtel Digital TV.