Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani's Reliance asked by US to refine more Venezuelan oil

The US wants Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries Ltd. to refine more Venezuelan crude and is open to the company producing oil in the South American country, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said ahead of a visit to Reliance's Jamnagar refinery.

"They can, and we'll talk about that tomorrow with Reliance," Rubio told reporters in Mumbai on Tuesday, when asked whether India could take more Venezuelan oil. "They've done so in the past. They have the capability to refine heavy crude."

Rubio is due on Wednesday at Jamnagar in the western state of Gujarat, where Reliance runs two refineries with a combined capacity of about 1.4 million barrels a day. The company describes the complex as the largest single-site refinery in the world. Ambani, 69, the chairman and managing director of Reliance and India's richest person, is set to meet him there. He is worth about $79 billion.

Asked whether he would raise the idea of Reliance producing oil in Venezuela, Rubio said the US had discussed it with the company before. "We're gonna go see what the hold-up is and what opportunities exist," he said. "This is a company that has had a presence in Venezuela in the past and whose refining capabilities are substantial."

A buyer again after a sanctions pause

Reliance does not currently operate inside Venezuela, but it has long been one of the biggest foreign buyers of its heavy oil. The company stopped buying in early 2025 under pressure from US sanctions, applied for American approval in January this year and won a US licence in February that lets it buy Venezuelan crude directly. That same month it bought 2 million barrels from trader Vitol.

Venezuelan output has climbed since US forces captured former President Nicolás Maduro in January, and Washington now has effective control over who buys the country's oil. Shipments to India have jumped as Russian crude has become more expensive. Deliveries were on track for about 465,000 barrels a day in October, up from about 196,000 in September and the most since December 2019, according to ship-tracking data from Kpler. Every one of those cargoes is headed for Sikka, the port that serves Jamnagar.

Rubio called India "a refining superpower" and said its companies already hold oil concessions in Venezuela that could pump more. State-run ONGC Videsh is the main Indian investor in Venezuelan oil fields.

"I'm not claiming to you that Venezuela alone can fill the hole," he said of gaps in global oil supply, "but I think over time, it most certainly can. And in the short term, it can certainly provide relief."

He said India was ready to do more, though existing sanctions could get in the way. "There might be a few impediments that stand in the way in terms of sanctions and so forth that we'll have to work through," Rubio said.

Trade deal and Russian oil

The trip, which skips New Delhi, comes days after President Donald Trump waived possible penalties on the largest buyers of Russian oil, India among them. A law signed in September allowed tariffs of as much as 100% on those countries. Rubio has said a US-India trade agreement is "a matter of weeks, not months" away, and he met Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar in Mumbai on Tuesday.

"We're very, very close," he told reporters. "I would say we're about as close as you can be without having executed the agreement."

Reliance has grown closer to Washington this year. In March, Trump said the company would back a new refinery planned for Brownsville, Texas, the first major oil refinery built in the US in about 50 years, and Reliance signed a 20-year deal to buy its fuel.

Rubio's visit to Jamnagar falls on the day Jio Platforms Ltd., the telecom and digital arm Ambani controls through Reliance, opens its initial public offering to investors. The share sale seeks about ₹30,213 crore ($3.2 billion) at a price band of ₹1,065 to ₹1,119 a share, valuing the business at about $108 billion. Anchor investors bid more than ₹2.5 lakh crore ($26.3 billion) for their portion on Monday. The offer closes on Friday.