Mumbai, Mukesh Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director of oil and petrochemicals giant Reliance Industries (RIL), said the Crude oil prices can rise to more than $100 a barrel due to sluggish refinery growth and high costs of new discoveries and production.

By most analyst accounts crude oil prices are well above the $70 mark and in the foreseeable future in the worst case we have to be prepared to again see a three-digit oil price, Mukesh Ambani told a conference.

$80-$100 is a norm in this ever changing global dynamics and we have to reset our thinking rather hoping that oil prices will go back, and energy prices and feedstock prices will go back to what we were used to in the last two decades, he said.

Reliance Industries, owner of the worlds largest refining capacity, posted a 30 percent increase in profit for the three months ending March 31. Mukesh Ambani controlled Reliances 1.24 million barrel-a-day Jamnagar refining complex in the western state of Gujarat ran at 108 percent of planned capacity last month.

U.S. crude oil fell to a three-month low below $74 on Friday on concerns the European debt crisis would curb global growth and energy demand, while a stronger dollar shrank buying power for other currency holders.

Notes to Editor

The Reliance Group, founded by Dhirubhai H. Ambani (1932-2002), is Indias largest private sector enterprise, with businesses in the energy and materials value chain. Groups annual revenues are in excess of US$ 28 billion. The flagship company, Reliance Industries Limited, is a Fortune Global 500 company and is the largest private sector company in India.