Reliance Industries, India`s biggest conglomerate

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Reliance Industries has made a cash offer to buy bankrupt US based petrochemicals firm LyondellBasell Industries.

Sources have told Reuters India's biggest conglomerate is offering about USD 12 billion to acquire a controlling stake in LyondellBasell.

The deal could create one of the largest petrochemical firms in the world, and would be India's second-biggest foreign takeover. In 2007, Tata Steel bought Corus for USD 13 billion.

Here are some facts about Reliance Industries:

* Reliance Industries is India's largest listed firm with a market value of about USD 75 billion. It has interests spanning refining, petrochemicals, oil and gas exploration, textiles and retail. It made a profit of 152.96 billion rupees (USD3.3 billion) in the 2008/09 financial year (April/March) on sales of Rs 1.5 trillion.

* It is controlled by Mukesh Ambani, whom Forbes magazine recently ranked as India's richest man with a net worth of USD 32 billion.

* Last December, Reliance commissioned a 580,000 barrels per day (bpd) refinery next to its existing 660,00 bpd plant at Jamnagar in the western Indian state of Gujarat. Together, the plants make up the world's largest oil refining complex.

* The company also plans to set up a petrochemical complex at Jamnagar that would nearly double its current capacity to 4 million tonnes a year.

* In April, Reliance Industries started pumping gas from its find in the Krishna Godavari basin off the country's east coast. The find, India's largest, is expected to almost double the energy-hungry nation's output when production peaks to 80 mmscmd.

* The Reliance empire was split in 2005 between Mukesh and estranged younger brother Anil under a deal struck by their mother following the death of their father, who founded the firm.

* The brothers are embroiled in a legal battle over a deal by Reliance Industries to supply gas to Anil's Reliance Natural Resources that was part of the 2005 settlement.