In what is being touted as a response to Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries’ entry into the renewable energy sector, the Gautam Adani-led Adani Group’s flagship company, Adani Enterprises Ltd, has caught everyone’s attention with its announcement about entering a new industry dominated by Reliance Industries.
Adani Enterprises Ltd has incorporated a wholly-owned subsidiary, ‘Adani Petrochemicals Limited’ (APL) on July 30, 2021. “The objective of the acquisition is to carry on the business of setting up refineries, petrochemicals complexes, specialty chemicals units. Hydrogen and related chemicals plants and other such similar units,” the company said in a ROC(Gujarat) filing on July 30, 2021.
This comes at a time when the overall outlook for the petrochemical industry in India is more positive than it was in 2020 as several state-owned energy corporations have made investments to boost petrochemical feedstock availability and extend their presence in the downstream derivatives market.
However, the entry into this capital intensive and extremely-crucial-to-industries sector is being looked at as a late move as the Group stayed out of the privatization process of Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited(BPCL), a company that is expanding into petrochemicals in a big way and would have given wing to the Group’s petrochemicals ambitions
The petrochemicals foray is the second such announcement by the Adani Group in the last two months. Earlier in June, Adani Enterprises said it would enter the cement business, and announced the incorporation of a wholly-owned subsidiary, Adani Cement Industries Ltd (ACIL).
In April this year, a wholly-owned arm ‘Mundra Petrochem Ltd’ (MPL) was incorporated with the aim to “set up various feed-stocks based refinery, petrochemical, and chemical plants in a phased manner in India. This was a part of the pact signed with BASF in 2019.
It appears as if the Group is trying to have a presence at both ends of the spectrum of energy generation – natural and renewable sources – as The Group also decided that a significant part of its future investments will be focused on sustainable and renewable energy and had previously announced plans to become world’s largest renewable energy producer by 2030.
Since entering the renewables business more than a year ago, the Adani Group has quickly moved to become the world’s biggest solar power developer through a mix of acquisitions and strategic partnerships.
