The war has created a tailwind for fossil fuel-based firms in India, said Chakri Lokapriya, managing director and chief investment officer at TCG Advisory Services Pvt. in Mumbai.

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“The collateral damage is that fossil fuels will continue to play a vital role the next 20 years or more,” he said, adding that it was sufficient time to reap benefits from carbon-based investments.

Representatives for Adani Group and Reliance Industries did not respond to an email requesting comments.

Bullishness in coal prices helped flagship firm Adani Enterprises Ltd. clock a 30 per cent jump in profit for the three months ended March – the highest in six quarters – while surging prices of petroleum products aided Reliance, which posted one of its biggest quarterly profits ever.

Shares of both Reliance and Adani Enterprises had soared 19 per cent and 42 per cent, respectively, between February 24, when the invasion began, and end of April, before a global stock rout wiped out some of those gains. Adani has added about US$25 billion to his wealth since the war started, taking his net worth to almost US$106 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Ambani’s fortune swelled by almost US$8 billion to US$92.4 billion.

It isn’t just these two Indian billionaires benefiting from the commodities surge. Others include US oil and gas tycoons Harold Hamm, Richard Kinder and Michael S. Smith, and Indonesia’s Low Tuck Kwong, the boss of coal mining company PT Bayan Resources, who have all seen their wealth increase this year.

Almost 60 per cent of Reliance’s revenue comes from oil-refining and petrochemicals, the mainstay business founded by Ambani’s late father. Since inheriting it in 2002, Ambani has been reducing the conglomerate’s dependence on oil-refining by diversifying into retail, telecommunications and technology.

India has bought millions of barrels of Urals crude in the spot market since the end of February, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. While flows of Russian oil into India are not sanctioned, the South Asian country has repeatedly said that those shipments are minuscule compared to Europe’s purchases and represent a tiny fraction of the country’s total consumption. They also provide some relief at a time when inflationary pressures are increasing. India’s consumer prices rose the most in eight years in April.

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“We have minimised feedstock cost by sourcing arbitrage barrels,” Reliance’s Joint Chief Financial Officer V. Srikanth told reporters on May 6, without providing details. “Overall demand drivers are very promising,” he said referring to the strong comeback in demand for fossil fuels.

Refiners in India exported 3.37 million tonnes of diesel in March, the highest since April 2020, when overseas sales were a record 3.4 million tonnes as local demand plummeted during the Covid-19 lockdown, according to data on Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell’s website. Petrol exports reached a five-year high of 1.6 million tonnes.

For first-generation entrepreneur Adani, coal is central to his empire. He has invested more than US$3 billion in coal mines in India, Australia and Indonesia. His Carmichael mine in Queensland, which has been a target of environmental activists including Greta Thunberg for years, started shipping the fuel only this year.

In a May 4 earnings call, Adani Enterprises said it plans to raise the annual capacity of the Carmichael mine to 15 million tonnes in the year through March 2023, about 50 per cent more than what its board approved for the first phase of the project. It plans to export as many as seven capesize cargoes a month, director Vinay Prakash said on the call.

The “geopolitical situation” is expected to keep coal prices strong for now, but how long this lasts is “anyone’s guess,” Prakash told investors.