U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and his wife Jeanette Rubio before boarding a plane en route to Jamnagar on October 21, 2026
| Photo Credit: Reuters via AP
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio arrived in Gujarat’s Jamnagar city on Wednesday (October 21, 2026) to visit the oil refinery complex owned by Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries Ltd, a day after he described India as a crude oil refining “superpower”.
Mr. Rubio is on a three-day visit to India to advance bilateral ties in energy, trade and investment, defence and critical technologies, besides exchanging views on the West Asia crisis.
During his visit, Mr. Rubio is scheduled to tour the Jamnagar refinery complex, which assumes significance in the context of his remarks on India’s oil refining capabilities and his call for processing more Venezuelan crude in the country.
According to the RIL website, its Jamnagar refinery is the “largest and most complex single-site refinery in the world with 1.4 million barrels per day (MMBPD) crude processing capacity and a complexity index of 21.1 — the highest in the world”.
It states that “the refinery has processed over 216 different grades of crude oil produced in the world — perhaps the only refinery to achieve this feat”.
The Jamnagar refinery complex houses some of the world’s largest units, such as the Fluidised Catalytic Cracker (FCC), Coker, Alkylation, Paraxylene, Polypropylene, Refinery Off-Gas Cracker (ROGC) and Petcoke gasification plants, the company said.
The U.S. Secretary of State arrived in Mumbai on Tuesday, where External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar hosted him for wide-ranging talks on bilateral cooperation.
Ahead of the meeting, Mr. Rubio described India as a crude oil refining “superpower” and advocated for processing more Venezuelan crude in India.
He also urged India to scale up energy trade with the U.S. and increase purchases of American technologies and defence systems.
Published – October 21, 2026 02:12 pm IST
