Key dates in history of Reliance Industry

• 1948 Gujarat native Dhirubhai H. Ambani, aged 16, travels to Aden and begins working as a clerk at a service station.
• 1958 Ambani returns to India and sets up an import-export business, eventually focusing on the textile market, which becomes Reliance Textiles.
• 1966 Reliance launches textile manufacturing, building its first factory.
• 1977 Reliance goes public in one of India's first and largest public offerings.
• 1981 The company begins construction of a polyester filament yarn facility in Patalganga.
• 1986 After Ambani suffers a stroke, sons Mukesh and Anil take over day-to-day direction of the company; the company launches its first petrochemicals production as part of a vertical integration strategy.
• 1991 Reliance Refineries Ltd. is established in preparation for further vertical integration.
• 1993 Reliance Refineries goes public and changes its name to Reliance Petroleum.
• 1997 Reliance Petroleum launches construction of India's largest oil refinery at Jamnagar.
• 1999 Reliance wins a bid for 12 exploration blocks auctioned off by the Indian government.
• 2002 Reliance locates the largest Indian natural gas field in decades; Dhirubhai Ambani dies at age 69; Reliance Petroleum is merged into Reliance Industries.
• 2004 Reliance discovers a new natural gas field in the Bay of Bengal; the company acquires Germany's Trevira, becoming the world's leading manufacturer of polyester.
• 2006 Reliance Industries is broken up between the Ambani brothers