Mumbai, Sept. 17: The giant is undergoing a makeover: and in five years’ time, the revenue gushers for Reliance Industries will be its oil and gas exploration business and its $6-billion retailing venture.

At present, 87 per cent of its revenues come from its petrochemicals and refining operations; by 2011, the contribution from these two segments will be down to around 35 per cent, says a report put out by Macquarie Research.

The report says the national rollout of the retailing venture could be delayed by up to 36 months but it will eventually ride out a winner. It is expected to have 10 million sq ft of retail space by 2010. The report says RIL will get a large chunk of its revenues from its upstream businesses — and the KG-D6 block won’t be the only one from which it will rake in the moolah. According to Macquarie, the KG-D4 oil discovery could top the in-place oil reserves of KG-D6 estimated at 1.6 billion barrels.

But that isn’t all: Reliance has another big find in the Cauvery basin — in a concession labelled as CY-III-D5 — which could dwarf KG-D6. It was the very first well drilled in the Cauvery deepwater, where RIL has four blocks spread across 40,000 sq km.

RIL will be drilling the first well in KG-D9 before the end of this year. This well has a success rate of 60 per cent measured by the number of spots drilled that yield oil and gas. Macquarie expects the announcement of new discoveries early next year.

The company is the largest exploration acreage holder in the private sector in India with 33 domestic exploration blocks covering an area of around 336,000sq km.

Additionally, RIL holds a 30 per cent interest in an unincorporated joint venture with ONGC and British Gas. RIL also has exploration and production rights to five coal-bed methane blocks covering an area of about 4,000 sq km.

In addition to the upstream business, the new 27mt refinery is likely to be completed before the end of next year, earning it higher gross refining margins.

Sources tracking RIL concur with Macquaire’s view. “Only one part of RIL’s exploration business is known so far. More success could be on its way from other blocks. Moreover, organised retail business could contribute significantly over the next few years as operations are ramped up. However, retail’s contribution to the bottomline may not be significant,” they added.

RIL is expected to spend $20 billion in capital expenditure over the next five years. Of these, field development in the KG basin is expected to account for $ 4.7 billion.