Reliance signs 20-year fuel supply deal for Texas refinery project
America First Refining's $4 billion Brownsville plant, pitched as the first major new US refinery in about 50 years, still needs financing and a construction start by October 2027.
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Reliance Industries has signed a 20-year fuel supply agreement tied to America First Refining's planned $4 billion refinery in Texas. The companies are targeting 2029 for the start of operations. Morgan Stanley is leading the debt and equity fundraising for the project, and America First Refining is seeking government support to help the plant get built.
The refinery is planned for 240 acres at the Port of Brownsville and is designed to process about 160,000 barrels a day of shale oil from the Permian Basin, according to the Port of Brownsville, cited by Inside Climate News. America First Refining is led by its chairman and founder, John V. Calce, Oil and Gas Watch News has reported.
The project has already used up most of its room to delay. Texas regulators have granted three extensions to the deadline for breaking ground since 2021, most recently pushing it from April 19, 2026 to October 19, 2027, and have called that the final extension allowed under state law, Inside Climate News has reported. Reliance already has a stake in the project: in March 2026 it joined as a minority partner with an agreement to buy at least 80% of the refinery's output, according to KXAN.
President Trump has described the project as worth $300 billion, but that figure reflects the cumulative 20-year value of crude feedstock and refined product rather than the $4 billion cost of building the refinery, according to a Substack analysis citing Bloomberg and Newsweek reporting. Michael Webber, an energy researcher at the University of Texas at Austin, called the $300 billion figure 'disinformation' in a social media post cited by Inside Climate News.
For Reliance, the agreement extends its refining and fuel supply reach into the United States, well beyond its core India and export business, and locks in a 20-year offtake tied to a refinery that still needs financing, construction and an on-time 2029 start to deliver value. Morgan Stanley's role as lead fundraiser adds this to a run of large financing mandates for industrial and M&A deals, a pattern that has held even as analysts have cut price targets on the bank and its latest quarter missed estimates. What the deal is ultimately worth to Reliance depends on the refinery actually getting built and on government support that has not yet materialized.