Major Indian conglomerate Adani Enterprises has set up a new subsidiary, Adani Petrochemicals (APL), to invest in refineries, petrochemical complexes, specialty chemical units, hydrogen and related chemical plants.

No details were released of the scale of the investment, types of chemicals or timeline, but APL intends to be in direct competition with India's largest private-sector refiner and petrochemicals producer Reliance Industries (RIL).

Adani's previous forays into the petrochemical sector include an initial deal with German chemical producer BASF in 2019 to invest in a €2bn chemical plant in Mundra, Gujarat. The deal was expanded a year later to include Abu Dhabi's state-owned energy firm Adnoc and Austrian chemical company Borealis. The plan was later put on hold because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

RIL's Jamnagar complex in western India houses the world's largest integrated refining and petrochemical hub with crude processing capacity of 1.24mn b/d integrated to an off-gas cracker with 1.5mn t/yr ethylene capacity. The company has a total paraxylene capacity of 4.3mn t/yr and is one of the world's largest producers of polyester fibre and yarn.

Adani, which already has a stronghold in sustainable energy, deepened its partnership with France's TotalEnergies — previously known as Total — in January, when the French firm acquired a 20pc interest in Adani Green Energy.