JSM Financial: Atlas Energy and India’s giant Reliance Industry strike JV agreement.

April 11, 2010 - PRLog -- After recently seeing two major deals, one with Dutch firm LyondellBassel and the second with Canada’s Value Creation fall apart to, finally a positive for Indian energy giant Reliance Industries.
JSM Financial sources report that India's largest private sector conglomerate (by market value) , with an annual turnover of US$ 35.9 billion has agreed to pay $1.7 billion to form a joint venture with Atlas Energy at one of the most promising natural gas deposit regions in the U.S.

Reliance Industries, controlled by Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani has been focusing intensively on expanding its presence outside of India and into new markets and business including oil and gas exploration and petrochemicals.

The new agreement will see Reliance pick up a 40% stake in Atlas’s Marcellus Shale operations, JSM Financial was informed, a gas project spanning parts of Pennsylvania, West Virginia and New York which some experts and analysts say could hold sufficient natural gas reserves to supply all U.S. demand for the next ten years.

“This transaction will enable us to accelerate sharply our development of the Marcellus. As a result of this joint venture, we anticipate creating a significant number of new, well-paying Pennsylvania jobs,” JSM Financial understands the Atlas CEO and chairman Edward Cohen was recently quoted as saying.

In recent months Reliance’s Chairman, currently rated by Forbes as the world’s 4th richest man, has shown serious intent regarding the firm’s overseas ambitions and has raised over $2 billion by selling stocks for this eventuality.

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