Reliance to acquire oil storages in US

New Delhi: Reliance Industries will soon acquire clean storages in the US East Coast and Gulf Coast to sell huge volumes of fuel, a senior official said, putting in place its global infrastructure that will cement its swing-supplier role.

"We are looking for storages in the East Coast, the Gulf Coast and the West Coast... We are under process to acquire in East Coast and the Gulf Coast," the company official, who declined to be named due to company policy, said.

A Reliance spokesperson said: "We are looking for clean storage capacity in the US".

It was not immediately clear if Reliance would lease or buy the storages.

The Reliance official did not disclose the timeframe or the capacity of the proposed storages, but trade sources said the size could be about 200,000-250,000 cubic metres (cu m) and the deal expected to take place by end-March.

The firm would use the storages to market huge volumes of oil products from its recently commissioned 580,000 barrels per day (bpd) refinery, owned by subsidiary Reliance Petroleum.

The new plant, sited next to the group's existing 660,000-bpd refinery, has turned Reliance's Jamnagar complex into the world's biggest oil facility.

Reliance has also recently started gasoline trading operations in the United States, adding liquidity to physical trading. The office located in Texas will trade gasoline both on the US Gulf Coast and New York Harbor markets.

"Southeast Asia is surplus, Europe is almost flat and the US is the only market where they can sell the products. They may float their own brand at a later date," said a trade source. Reliance recently commissioned its clean storage facility at Ashkelon terminal in Israel to tap Mediterranean and European markets.

It has also leased 100,000 cu m of clean oil products storage in Singapore from Dutch oil and chemicals storage operator Royal Vopak NV, industry sources had earlier said. Reliance has also leased clean oil storages in the Caribbean.

The International Energy Agency in its latest report said that the Asian oil product supply picture is set to change in the coming months with the start up of Reliance's new refinery. "India is expected to export 25 medium range cargoes of gas oil a month, displacing mostly Japanese and Korean volumes," it said.