Reliance Industries Ltd., owned by Mukesh Ambani - Asia's richest man - has eclipsed BP Plc to enter into a prestigious oil supermajors group.
The Indian company is now estimated at $138 billion, relative with Tuesday's $132 billion valuations of the UK oil firm at the end of a trade.
Reliance's stocks have risen to three times the rate of India's benchmark index this year after its billionaire owner unveiled plans to reduce the company's net debt to zero in 18 months through a stock sale to Saudi Aramco in the oil-to-chemicals sector.
According to the Bloomberg Billionaires List, the rise in stocks gives Ambani a net worth of $56 billion, making him the richest person in Asia, above Jack Ma's Alibaba Group.
For the first time at the end of last month, Reliance's market value briefly surpassed BP and has now regained the lead over the British company after hitting a fresh high in Mumbai on Wednesday.
It also narrows the difference with PetroChina Co., currently the largest oil company in terms of market value in Asia, and is within a whisker of becoming the first Indian company to reach the 10 trillion market-cap group.
This year, Reliance surged 40 percent relative with BP's 1.3 percent increase as it seeks to reduce high debt rates. Oil companies have suffered because of volatility in crude prices and because there is doubt over the potential demand for energy.
The company runs the globe's largest oil refinery in western India, which can produce low-quality crude and convert it to higher-grade fuels, in part protecting it from price instability in the world market.
Although Reliance derives two-thirds of its profits from oil, Ambani has also made massive investments in telecommunications and digital services as it aims to benefit from the growing demand for mobile phone users in the world's second-largest market. He has increased the retail business of the company to go head to head with Amazon.com and Walmart Inc.
The telecom division Reliance Jio, which is said to be the largest mobile data network in the world, was also boosted by a recent decline in India's wireless carriers that left Ambani's company largely unaffected. On Tuesday, Jio disclosed it will undertake new measures that will include ramping up tariffs in the coming weeks.
Reliance is now the sixth-largest energy company in the world, with Exxon Mobil Corp. topping the list with a market value of nearly $290 billion. Aramco, formally known as Saudi Arabian Oil Co., is preparing an initial public offering with an estimation goal of $1.6 trillion to $1.7 trillion, making it the largest in the world.
