Mukesh Ambani led Reliance Industries said on Wednesday the company is implementing a project to source 1.5 MMTPA of Ethane from US to feed its crackers in India.

The shale gas industry, in North America has grown exponentially in the past 5 years. As a result Ethane has become the dominant feedstock for crackers replacing liquids, the company said.

'Reliance's investments in shale gas and its existing crackers portfolio in India are a natural fit for sourcing Ethane from North America and shipping it to India to attain long term feedstock competitiveness,' it said.

Reliance has now executed storage and capacity agreements for liquefaction and export of ethane with a North American terminal, which is expected to commence operations in the second half of 2016.

Reliance is also building a world-scale receiving and storage facility in India for liquefied ethane and pipeline to deliver ethane to our crackers.

Reliance will be upgrading its crackers to maximize cracking of Ethane, have maximum operational flexibility and capability to optimize feed stocks with complete control of supply chain.

The project will significantly improve the long term competitiveness of our cracker portfolio through dedicated feedstock, enhanced margins, higher capacity and end-to-end integration.

Shares of the company declined Rs 10.5, or 1.04%, to settle at Rs 998.20. The total volume of shares traded was 479,714 at the BSE (Wednesday).