The Story of Jamnagar

Reliance Jamnagar Oil and Petrochemicals Complex is the world's largest refining hub. It was a dream project of Shri Dhirubhai Ambani, who envisioned setting up his own refinery way back in the 1950s, during his days in Aden.

For this project, Shri Dhirubhai Ambani requested the Gujarat Government to allot him around 7500 acres of land to facilitate a green refinery. He dispatched experts to Israel to learn more about greening a desert to make Reliance Jamnagar as world's largest greenfield grassroots refinery. The garden, which consisted of thousands of mango and other fruit trees, plants, and flowers, came to be known as 'Lakhibagh' or the 'Garden of lakhs.' Reliance Jamnagar was made operational in just 36 months under the leadership of Shri Mukesh Ambani. The largest petroleum refinery in Asia was finally set up in 1999, about 25km away from the city of Jamnagar.

During the course of its construction, for quick movement and transportation of equipment and machinery to the project site, a jetty was constructed in a record four months. Also, Reliance had its own concrete plant along with pipe-bending shops and an on-site training center for training the welders, fitters, and carpenters hired for the project. Due to its proximity to a seismic zone, Shri Dhirubhai Ambani advised his team to make the Jamnagar plant earthquake-resistant to an intensity of 9 on the Richter scale. His advice was vindicated when Gujarat experienced an earthquake measuring 7.4 on the Richter scale on January 26, 2001, and the refinery escaped unscathed.

Reliance Jamnagar was finally made operational in just 36 months under the leadership of Shri Mukesh Ambani. The largest petroleum refinery in Asia was finally set up in 1999, about 25km away from the city of Jamnagar. It is probably the largest industrial project to be implemented in the Indian corporate sector. It is a fully integrated unit consisting of a petroleum refinery complex, a power generation complex, a terminal complex, and a port. On his 66th birthday, Shri Dhirubhai Ambani successfully inaugurated a desalination facility in Jamnagar. Today, the refinery supplies water to the surrounding areas during frequent periods of drought and processes more than 1.2 crores (10.2 million) gallons of seawater into potable water daily.

With a crude processing capacity of 1.24 million Barrels Per Stream Day (BPSD), the Jamnagar refinery is a trendsetter and has won several awards, including the prestigious 'International Refiner Of The Year' award. It also enjoys the distinction of housing some of the world's largest units, such as the Fluidised Catalytic Cracker (FCC), Coker, Alkylation, Paraxylene, Polypropylene, Refinery off-gas (ROG) cracker, and Petcoke gasification plants. In modern times, fuels from the Jamnagar refinery get exported to several countries across the world.