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My father actually works at the Jamnagar refinery. I was bought up in there seeing and visiting the refinery as families are allowed for some trips every now an

My father actually works at the Jamnagar refinery. I was bought up in there seeing and visiting the refinery as families are allowed for some trips every now and then. I learnt a lot of this process of refining out of curiosity of what my father did and it was just so cool. The refinery in context is the world's largest since more than a decade and seeing it with your own eyes, it feels like a wonder of the world for real. Truly marvellous outcome of perseverance and engineering. Loved to see this blog on the HN homepage, its very well written

alephnerd 5mo ago
Would love to hear stories about it. Reliance is working on replicating the Jamnagar refinery approach in America [0] now as well. It's interesting to both see Asian majors and EPCs increasingly dominating the petrochemical chain as well as see an industry that the US used to lead in increasingly become dependent those partners. What a massive shift in just 25 years. [0] - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-03-11/reliance-goes-from-trump-foe-to-friend-with-oil-refinery-pledge https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-03-11/reliance-...
- mlinhares 5mo ago
  When all you can produce are finance bros this is the result.
- caminante 5mo ago
  Not really a big deal. The numbers are cumulative. The Reliance Brownsville Texas facility will only process 60 million barrels per year. That's 1% of annual US refining capacity. > It's interesting to both see Asian majors and EPCs increasingly dominating the petrochemical chain You really don't want downstream in your backyard, though. The environmental oversight in these countries is...less. Meanwhile, it's a hyper competitive industry with low margins so adding new capacity only works in places with cheap labor and less red tape.
  - alephnerd 5mo ago
    [flagged]
    - caminante 5mo ago
      Hey. You're obviously having a bad couple days, which seems to have nothing to do with this discussion or HN. I hope you can recover and feel better. My point remains that Reliance isn't investing 300B in a refinery as you so claim. >India's Reliance is also investing $300B That's a cumulative offtake figure used in hyperbolic, Trump-style headlines.
    - flumpmaster 5mo ago
      “especially given that a net new refinery hasn't been built in the US in 50 years.” Existing large refineries have done some massive expansion projects in the last couple of decades, adding the equivalent of a several new refineries. It is often easier to do this than build a new grass roots refinery. Example projects: MPC Garyville +180 MBD (2009) Motiva Port Arthur +325 MBD (2012) XOM Beaumont +250 MBD (2023)
    - eiee 5mo ago
      There are many topics where you come across as an over confident plank too. So I agree - delete your account. Ciao
      - rmunn 5mo ago
        [dead]
throwaway7783 5mo ago
Wow, I contracted in Jamnagar for Reliance building software back in 1999-2000. It was fun building a web interface to report on their IoT (not called IoT back then) devices - sensors, meters and whatnots through a CORBA/C++ interface. That was very advanced for those days.
- deleted 5mo ago
  [deleted]
spot5010 5mo ago
My father worked in the HPCL refinery in Chembur. I got to go visit on Republic day when I was a kid, but they stopped doing visits. He worked in the distillation tower at first, but then moved into diesel desulphurization. I wish it wasn't but its a dangerous job, and he narrowly escaped several accidents, including a horrible naphta fire that took many lives.
mandeepj 5mo ago
It’s worth mentioning here - the founder (Dhiru bhai) of Reliance used to pump gas in Dubai and that’s where he got the dream to start his own refinery one day. Dream one side, but just going about setting up such a giant production facility at an enormous scale is nothing short of an extraordinary achievement. Pretty sure he had overflow of grit, commitment, and all around strength, and of course high dose of highest level of talent.
- Gud 5mo ago
  Any source for this claim that Ambani started his career as a gas pumper? Or are do you mean someone else?
- damnitbuilds 5mo ago
  Nah, he did it the old-fashioned way - by corruption and dirty dealing, then his family suppressed the people reporting the truth: https://archive.ph/i3FWt https://archive.ph/i3FWt
  - caminante 5mo ago
    They're still playing above the law and read anti-corruption regulations as "how to" manuals.
newyankee 5mo ago
Wow, I had seen the inside of the refinery still partly under construction way back in 2003 when I was barely out of my teens.
KolibriFly 5mo ago
That must be an incredible place to grow up around

alephnerd 5mo ago

Would love to hear stories about it. Reliance is working on replicating the Jamnagar refinery approach in America [0] now as well. It's interesting to both see Asian majors and EPCs increasingly dominating the petrochemical chain as well as see an industry that the US used to lead in increasingly become dependent those partners. What a massive shift in just 25 years. [0] - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-03-11/reliance-goes-from-trump-foe-to-friend-with-oil-refinery-pledge https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-03-11/reliance-...

mlinhares 5mo ago
When all you can produce are finance bros this is the result.
caminante 5mo ago
Not really a big deal. The numbers are cumulative. The Reliance Brownsville Texas facility will only process 60 million barrels per year. That's 1% of annual US refining capacity. > It's interesting to both see Asian majors and EPCs increasingly dominating the petrochemical chain You really don't want downstream in your backyard, though. The environmental oversight in these countries is...less. Meanwhile, it's a hyper competitive industry with low margins so adding new capacity only works in places with cheap labor and less red tape.
- alephnerd 5mo ago
  [flagged]
  - caminante 5mo ago
    Hey. You're obviously having a bad couple days, which seems to have nothing to do with this discussion or HN. I hope you can recover and feel better. My point remains that Reliance isn't investing 300B in a refinery as you so claim. >India's Reliance is also investing $300B That's a cumulative offtake figure used in hyperbolic, Trump-style headlines.
  - flumpmaster 5mo ago
    “especially given that a net new refinery hasn't been built in the US in 50 years.” Existing large refineries have done some massive expansion projects in the last couple of decades, adding the equivalent of a several new refineries. It is often easier to do this than build a new grass roots refinery. Example projects: MPC Garyville +180 MBD (2009) Motiva Port Arthur +325 MBD (2012) XOM Beaumont +250 MBD (2023)
  - eiee 5mo ago
    There are many topics where you come across as an over confident plank too. So I agree - delete your account. Ciao
    - rmunn 5mo ago
      [dead]

throwaway7783 5mo ago

Wow, I contracted in Jamnagar for Reliance building software back in 1999-2000. It was fun building a web interface to report on their IoT (not called IoT back then) devices - sensors, meters and whatnots through a CORBA/C++ interface. That was very advanced for those days.

deleted 5mo ago
[deleted]

spot5010 5mo ago

My father worked in the HPCL refinery in Chembur. I got to go visit on Republic day when I was a kid, but they stopped doing visits. He worked in the distillation tower at first, but then moved into diesel desulphurization. I wish it wasn't but its a dangerous job, and he narrowly escaped several accidents, including a horrible naphta fire that took many lives.

mandeepj 5mo ago

It’s worth mentioning here - the founder (Dhiru bhai) of Reliance used to pump gas in Dubai and that’s where he got the dream to start his own refinery one day. Dream one side, but just going about setting up such a giant production facility at an enormous scale is nothing short of an extraordinary achievement. Pretty sure he had overflow of grit, commitment, and all around strength, and of course high dose of highest level of talent.

Gud 5mo ago
Any source for this claim that Ambani started his career as a gas pumper? Or are do you mean someone else?
damnitbuilds 5mo ago
Nah, he did it the old-fashioned way - by corruption and dirty dealing, then his family suppressed the people reporting the truth: https://archive.ph/i3FWt https://archive.ph/i3FWt
- caminante 5mo ago
  They're still playing above the law and read anti-corruption regulations as "how to" manuals.

newyankee 5mo ago

Wow, I had seen the inside of the refinery still partly under construction way back in 2003 when I was barely out of my teens.

KolibriFly 5mo ago

That must be an incredible place to grow up around