Reliance Industries Ltd on Thursday unveiled a greater roadmap for future and said it aimed to garner a cash flow of Rs 30,000 crore (Rs 300 billion) in the next three years.

"We aim to become a company with cash flows of about Rs 30,000 crore in the next three years and join the top 200 companies in the world which have cash flow of more than Rs 10,000 crore (Rs 100 billion)," its vice chairman and managing director Anil Ambani told reporters after announcing RIL's Q3 results in Mumbai.
 
He said the petrochemicals sector, which was in the initial stages of upcycle with the prices still hovering around 50 per cent of its peak in 1995-96, would help the company achieve the targets.

The petroleum sector where the demand has increased by 3.5 per cent was slated to grow by about 5-6 per cent across all products and margins were likely to further improve.

RIL, which posted a 26.86 per cent surge in its net profit for Q3, would go for the second exploratory campaign at the Krishna Godawari basin and the D6 block and drill its ninth exploratory well.

The company would open 300 retail petrol outlets in the next six months and take the figure to 600 by the end of the year, he said.

Ambani said the 3.5 per cent growth in diesel after two successive negative quarters would also help in growth.

Reliance has completed seismic acquisition of about 6,800 line km of 2D seismic data and about 2,500 sq km of 3D seismic data has been acquired for the eight blocks during the third quarter, he said, adding that front end engineering and designing for D6 blocks were also completed.

On talks of NTPC sourcing gas for its power plants, Ambani said Reliance was the only domestic bidder to fill the tender and added that NTPC would make a decision in next 60 days whether it would import LNG or buy gas from Reliance.

On Dabhol Power Plant, Ambani said Reliance would prefer an asset sale and added that lenders would formulate a process under which the result would be a transparent and merit-based one.

Ruling out a merger of the recently acquired NOCIL with RIL, he said Reliance would focus on bringing the capacity utilisation at full speed and evaluate strategies to make it a super-specialty plant.

On the proposed external commercial borrowings of $750 million by the company, Ambani said it was reviewing its overall cost following the freeing of ECB guidelines and rating upgrade of India to investment grade.

RIL was open to set up new power plants in different states and the proposed gas-based plant in UP was the first one, he said, adding that 3,500 MW plant fits well into the company's strategy to become an integrated service provider from "wellhead to socket" and would utilise about 25 per cent of its gas find.

RIL's gross refining margin has increased to $6.5 per barrel as compared to $3.5 per barrel in Asia Pacific, Ambani said, adding that the company's exports were about six per cent of the country's exports and comprised 20 per cent of sales.

He said the company has ramped up its capacity by debottlenecking the refinery during the planned shutdown to 33 million tonnes from 27 million tonnes during the last quarter.

The company refinery, despite a planned shutdown of about three weeks in December, operated at 107 per cent capacity utilisation and processed 21.78 million tonnes of crude during the nine months of this fiscal.

He said the Panna-Mukta fields, in which it holds a stake along with ONGC and British Gas, produced, saved and sold 9,11,881 tonne of crude oil and 28.87 billion cubic feet of gas during the April-December 2003 period. 

These fields are currently producing about 27,000 barrels a day of crude oil and 3.6 MMSCMD of gas, he said.