Mumbai: Reliance Industries (RIL), India's largest private sector firm, Tuesday said it has acquired a majority stake and management control of East Africa-based Gulf African Petroleum (GAPCO) in the downstream sector.

The company said the acquisition has been made through its wholly owned subsidy Reliance Industries Middle East, Dmcc (RIME), a company registered in the United Arab Emirates.

The Mauritius-based GAPCO owns and operates large storage terminalling facilities and a retail distribution network in several countries including Dar Es Salaam in Tanzania, Kampala in Uganda and Mombassa in Kenya as well as depots in East and Central Africa.

It also operates more than 250 outlets covering retail and industrial segments.

"Reliance considers its acquisition of GAPCO as strategic in nature. The East African countries, where GAPCO operates, have demonstrated rapid economic growth and have progressive government policies in place," an RIL spokesperson said.

"The demand for petroleum products in these countries is rising steadily and has mirrored the rapid GDP growth. Import of petroleum products in these countries is also expected to rise in the near future. Further, these markets are easily accessible from India and in that sense provide a strategic fit for exports from India."

"Acquisition of GAPCO by Reliance is a strategic step towards achieving its global vision in the petroleum downstream sector by integrating the entire value chain consisting of refining, shipping, trading, terminalling and marketing through retail and wholesale segments.

"Integration of this entire global value chain presents Reliance an extremely attractive potential upside to gain further prominence in the global petroleum downstream arena," the spokesperson said.

RIL, which owns and operates the world's largest greenfield refinery at Jamnagar on the western coast of India with 660,000 barrels per day capacity, said that it was setting up another similar sized export-oriented refinery with 580,000 barrels per day capacity at the same location through group firm Reliance Petroleum Limited (RPL).

Post commissioning of this refinery by December 2008, Jamnagar will become the Refining hub of the world, processing approximately 1.2 million barrels of crude oil per day.

This will be the largest refining complex at any single location in the world.