{"id":46407,"date":"2026-03-11T01:13:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-11T01:13:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/?p=46407"},"modified":"2026-03-11T01:13:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-11T01:13:11","slug":"trump-says-indias-reliance-will-back-first-new-us-oil-refinery-in-50-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/?p=46407","title":{"rendered":"Trump says India\u2019s Reliance will back first new US oil refinery in 50 years"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n<\/p>\n<p>Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for free<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__content-sign-up-topic-description o3-type-body-base\">Your guide to what Trump\u2019s second term means for Washington, business and the world<\/p>\n<p>Donald Trump announced plans for the first major refinery to be built in the US in almost half a century in the Texas city of Brownsville backed by Indian energy group Reliance Industries.<\/p>\n<p>The president unveiled the project from a little known group called America First Refining on Truth Social, describing it as \u201cA MASSIVE WIN for American Workers, Energy, and the GREAT People of South Texas!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA new Refinery at the Port of Brownsville, will fuel U.S. Markets, strengthen our National Security, boost American Energy production, deliver Billions of Dollars in Economic impact,\u201d Trump wrote.<\/p>\n<p>The announcement comes as the president\u2019s war against Iran roils oil markets and the White House seeks ways to tame a surge in crude prices.<\/p>\n<p>The project, if completed, would be the first new major refining project in the US since Marathon\u2019s Garyville, Louisiana facility came online in 1977. <\/p>\n<p>AFR said the announcement came after it received a \u201cnine-figure investment from a global supermajor at a 10-figure valuation\u201d \u2014 which it declined to name.<\/p>\n<p>Trump on Truth Social thanked India\u2019s Reliance for \u201cthis tremendous Investment\u201d. Reliance could not immediately be reached for comment.<\/p>\n<p>AFR acknowledged it would need to raise additional capital to complete a project expected to cost up to $4bn. <\/p>\n<p>It said it had also \u201csigned a binding 20-year offtake term sheet with the same global supermajor that secures commitments to purchase, process and distribute American-produced energy exclusively sourced from American shale oil\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>AFR said the facility would be capable of refining about 60mn barrels a year of American light crude and construction would begin in the coming months.<\/p>\n<p>The president wrote the project was \u201cA HISTORIC $300 BILLION DOLLAR DEAL\u201d. <\/p>\n<p>AFR said the figure was based on a calculation that the refinery would purchase and process 1.2bn barrels of shale oil at an estimated value of $125bn and produce 50bn gallons of refined product at an estimated value of $175bn, improving the US trade balance by $300bn.<\/p>\n<p>The new refinery within the Port of Brownsville was first proposed by Element Fuels, which completed site preparations for a hydrogen-powered facility in June 2024. The founder and chief executive of Element Fuels, John Calce, is the CEO of AFR.<\/p>\n<p>Calce told the FT the name \u201cAmerica First\u201d reflected the company\u2019s use of American shale as crude oil feedstock, rather than a political affiliation. \u201cI\u2019m not a major Trump donor,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>The US has 132 operating oil refineries, according to the Energy Information Administration. Most were built decades ago and are best suited to process the kind of heavy crude common in Venezuela and Canada.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for free Your guide to what Trump\u2019s second term means for Washington, business and the world Donald Trump announced plans for the first major refinery to be built in the US in almost half a century in the Texas city of Brownsville backed by Indian energy group Reliance Industries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":46408,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[3624,268,13661,12719,81,637],"class_list":{"0":"post-46407","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-indias","9":"tag-oil","10":"tag-refinery","11":"tag-reliance","12":"tag-trump","13":"tag-years"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=46407"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46407\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/46408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}