New Delhi: The Adani Group will invest more than $100 billion over the next decade, much of it in the energy transition business, its chairman Gautam Adani said on Tuesday, as the port-to-energy group accelerates an already aggressive expansion plan.
After setting up the group as a commodity trading business in 1988, the 60-year-old ventured into several sectors, primarily in the infrastructure sector and in line with the priorities of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government.
“As a group, we will invest more than $100 billion in capital over the next decade,” Adani, the world’s second-richest person, told the Forbes Global CEOs Conference in Singapore.
“We have earmarked 70% of this investment for the energy transition space. We are already the largest solar player in the world, and we intend to do more.”
He did not specify how the investment would be financed. Debt research firm CreditSights said earlier this month that it was concerned about the group’s leverage, though the group said its ratio was healthy and in line with industry standards.
According to Forbes, Adani has a personal fortune of $143 billion, second only to Elon Musk. The group’s listed companies have a combined market capitalization of $260 billion, which has been growing rapidly in recent years.
The Adani Group has announced deals worth billions of dollars this year alone, the largest being the acquisition of Holcim AG’s cement business in India – Ambuja Cements Ltd and ACC Ltd for $10.5 billion.
Gautam Adani said the group wants to be an inexpensive producer of green hydrogen – which is extracted from water using electrolysis in a process powered by renewable energy.
He said the group was in the process of building a 10 gigawatt (GW) silicon-based photo-voltaic chain, a 10 gigawatt wind-turbine manufacturing facility and a 5 gigawatt hydrogen electrolyzer factory.
“This is an absolute game changer for India and opens up the unprecedented possibility that India may one day become a net energy exporter,” he said.
India is currently the world’s third largest crude oil importer and consumer.
Adani said his group is India’s largest airport operator, with 25% passenger traffic and 40% air cargo. It is also India’s largest port and logistics company with 30% market share. ,Reuters
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