<div>Energy giant Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) said on Thursday it has signed an agreement with Japan's Mitsui OSK Lines Ltd for shipping liquefied ethane from North America to India.<br /><br />RIL said it has signed shipping agreements with one of the world's largest and reputed shipping companies Mitsui.<br /><br />"Mitsui will supervise the construction of six Very Large Ethane Carriers (VLECs), ordered by Reliance. Mitsui will also operate and manage the vessels after they are built and delivered," the company said in a statement.<br /><br />It however did not give out the investment or the cost involved in hiring of the vessels.<br /><br />"Reliance, with this strategic tie-up with Mitsui, has achieved a key milestone for the successful implementation of Ethane import project to feed crackers in India," the statement said.<br /><br />The VLECs are being built by Samsung Heavy Industries Co Ltd and are expected to be delivered in the last quarter of 2016, MOL said.<br /><br />Reliance - controlled by Mukesh Ambani, India's richest man - operates the world's biggest refinery complex in a single location in western India.<br /><br />The refiner said in August that it planned to import 1.5 million tonnes a year of ethane from the United States as feedstock for its crackers.<br /><br />(Agencies)</div>
