President Donald Trump said Tuesday that the United States will build its first new oil refinery in five decades with investment from Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries.
In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump called the project a “historic $300 billion deal-the biggest in U.S. history,” and thanked Reliance Industries, India’s largest private energy company, for the investment.
The refinery will be built at the port of Brownsville, Texas and is expected to process 100 percent American shale oil. Trump said the project would strengthen U.S. national security, increase domestic energy production, and generate billions of dollars in economic impact, while becoming “the cleanest refinery in the world.”
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Reliance Industries, controlled by Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani, operates the world’s largest oil refining complex in Jamnagar and has a market capitalization of roughly $206 billion.
The announcement comes at a time of heightened turbulence in global oil markets as tensions escalate in the Middle East. Crude prices briefly climbed close to $120 per barrel earlier this week before easing.
As of 4:00 a.m. ET, the U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude was trading about 2.4 percent higher at $85.2 per barrel. Meanwhile, international Brent crude futures were down 1.8 percent at around $88 per barrel.
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The refinery project is being developed by America First Refining. The company said it has secured a nine-figure investment from a global energy major at a 10-figure valuation, though it did not disclose the investor’s identity.
America First Refining also said the same investor has signed a 20-year agreement to purchase, process, and distribute shale oil produced in the United States.
According to the company, the facility is expected to process roughly 1.2 billion barrels of U.S. light shale oil, valued at about $125 billion, and produce nearly 50 billion gallons of refined petroleum products worth an estimated $175 billion.