Reliance excels ExxonMobil: Reliance becomes the world's second-largest energy company.

Reliance excels ExxonMobil: Reliance becomes the world's second-largest energy company

 Reliance Industries Ltd., owned by Asia’s richest man, excelled ExxonMobil Corp. to become the world’s biggest energy company after Saudi Aramco, as investors gathered into the conglomerate attracted by the Indian firm’s digital and retail forays.

Reliance, which operates the largest refinery complex, gained 4.3% in Mumbai on Friday combining $8 billion to take its market value to $189 billion, while Exxon Mobil canceled about $1 billion. Reliance’s shares have surged 43% this year compared with a 39% drop in Exxon’s shares as refiners over the globe strived with a fall in fuel demand. Aramco with a market capitalization of $1.76 trillion is the world’s largest energy company.

Ambani’s deal-making has attracted investments from Google to Facebook Inc. into his digital platform in recent months. 

The 63-year-old industrialist has recognized technology and retail as future growth fields in a pivot away from the energy businesses he acquired from his father who died in 2002.

Meanwhile, massive scale global oil demand consumption — some 30 million barrels a day, or a third of normal usage, in April — sent energy markets into a second-quarter tailspin, from which they’ve only recently begun to recover. 

Worst-in-a-generation oil prices combined with OPEC production cuts, dropping refining margins and millions of barrels of unsold crude have irritated big oil companies including Exxon and Chevron Corp.