Reliance Industries shares surged over 2 percent on Thursday following Jio-BP's deal with the Mahindra Group to explore electric vehicle (EV) and low-carbon solutions.
NSE
Jio-BP—a joint venture of Reliance Industries Ltd and BP, a British multinational oil & gas company—has inked an agreement with the Mahindra Group, under which, Mahindra Group and its channel partner locations will be evaluated for setting up of Jio-BP mobility stations and EV charging and swapping points.
Jio-BP will also evaluate charging solutions by Jio-BP for Mahindra vehicles, including electric three and four wheelers, quadricycles, and electric small commercial vehicles, the company said.
The two companies have signed a non-binding Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). Besides exploring EV opportunities, the company will also identify synergies in low-carbon and conventional fuels. Low carbon fuels are fuel from non-petroleum sources. These fuels release little to no carbon into the environment during production.
The two companies will work together to explore Mobility as a Service (MaaS) and Battery as a Service (BaaS). MaaS is an emerging service that aims to integrate various forms of transport into a single mobility service that can be accessed on-demand. BaaS allows customers to lease batteries, but as a separate component from cars. Since the batteries used in EVs have a higher cost, leasing would decrease the cost of an EV. With these high-performance and swappable batteries, the partnership aims to accelerate EV adoption in India, the statement said.
Following the news, the shares of the oil-to-retail-telecom conglomerate surged over 2 percent to Rs 2,474. At 14:00 IST, the stock was up over 1.5 percent to Rs 2,460. In comparison, S&P BSE Sensex rose over 0.17 percent.
RIL shares have been rallying this week on the back of various deals the company has signed. On Wednesday, the stock jumped 2 percent after the company announced a deal with Abu Dhabi Chemicals Derivatives Company to launch TA'ZIZ EDC & PVC. This investment, worth over $2 billion, is a world-scale chemical production partnership.
Later in the day, Mukesh Ambani, speaking at the fifth edition of the Indian Mobile Congress, mooted five ideas to strengthen the connectivity over the next decade. He said a full-scale migration to 4G and 5G services, decreasing the prices of devices, making 5G roll out a national priority, strong regulations, and fibre connectivity across the country are the elements that will strengthen digital connectivity over the next decade.
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