The situation amid the crude oil war between Saudi Arabi and Russia is so bad that even the tycoon's in the industry are affected. Well, now Indian energy tycoon Mukesh Ambani is no longer Asia's richest man as he passes the title to Alibaba founder Jack Ma.
The development comes after the collapse in oil prices as it slumped by 30% on Monday. Moreover, the intensifying fears of the spread of coronavirus also adds to the reason of the Asia's richest man losing his title.
It was a sell-off across sectors, led by financial, metal, energy and IT stocks - weighed on the markets. The rout erased $5.8 billion from his networth on Monday, according to Bloomberg Bilionaires Index.
Now, Jack Ma tops the list with a fortune of $44.5 billion that is about $2.6 billion more than Ambani.
Well, this raises eyebrows if now Reliance Industries Limited will be able to cut down its net debt to zero by 2021 as it had earlier pledged.
Though the impact of coronavirus has had an effect on Alibaba's businesses, the damage was however mitigated by the demand for cloud computing and mobile app servies.
RIL is however not so lucky in this case.
Reliance Industries, the operator of world's largest crude oil refinery at Jamnagar and KG-D6 basin in Krishna Godavari basin, dipped by 13.65%. This is the biggest single day fall Reliance has experiences in at least 10 years.
The stocks of Reliance Industries fell to Rs 1,094.95 per share. At 1.34 pm, it was trading at Rs 1,100, lower by Rs 170.05 or 13.39 per cent from its previous close. The stock fell most since October 2008.
World's billionaries also lost billions to the market crash and the collapse in oil prices on Monday. However, the crude oil industry was affected the most. Wildcatter Harold Hamm's wealth was also cut down by almost half to @2.4 billion. Oil tycoon Jeff Hildebrand also lost close to $3 billion on Monday.
RIL industries has piled up billion dollors of debt in its ventures such as telecom, technology and retail over the last few years. Amid these liabilities, to cut down its debt to zero by 2021 would really be a major concern for the company and its board.
On Saturday, Saudi Arabia had announced massive discounts to its official selling prices for April, and the nation is reportedly preparing to increase its production above the 10 million barrel per day mark, according to reports.
As per analysts, the oil market witnessed the worst price fall on Monday since the 1991 Gulf War.
