Reliance Industries Ltd., India’s largest company by market value, will start selling natural gas this year at the equivalent of a fifth of global prices, easing the nation’s import bill at a time of record crude oil costs.

Reliance will sell gas at $25.20 a barrel of oil equivalent, compared with more than $135 in global markets, Chairman Mukesh Ambani told shareholders in Mumbai today. Piping the gas from the Krishna Godavari basin off the eastern coast will cut 1.14 trillion rupees ($27 billion) from India’s import bill, he said.

Reliance Industries is investing $5.2 billion to develop Krishna Godavari, the nation’s largest field that is expected to more than double India’s gas output. India, Asia’s third-biggest economy, imports 70 percent of its oil and doesn’t produce enough gas to meet demand from power and fertilizer makers.

The Mumbai-based group’s petroleum unit will also commission its new refinery in the second half of this year, Ambani said.