Indian energy major Reliance Industries is seeking a joint venture with Atlas Energy to develop the U.S. firm's Marcellus Shale gas operations, a source with direct knowledge of the matter said.

Independent oil and gas company Atlas is looking for a partner for its operations in the booming Marcellus Shale in the eastern U.S., which could bring in $1 billion or more for the firm.

Reliance, India's largest listed firm, is eyeing a deal in the wake of two recent failures in trying to gain a foothold outside India, as it attempts to break into new markets and expand its various businesses including refining, oil and gas exploration and petrochemicals.

The Marcellus Shale, which spans parts of Pennsylvania, West Virginia and New York, could hold enough natural gas to satisfy U.S. demand for a decade, according to some geologists.

Analysts have said Reliance, controlled by the world's fourth-richest man Mukes Ambani, should seek oil and gas assets overseas as these can feed the company's massive refining complex in western India.

The company has raised $2 billion by selling stock in recent months, a warchest it could put to use for its ambitious overseas plans.

Reliance, founded by Ambani's father Dhirubhai, a school teacher's son, has not met with much success yet in its foreign takeover attempts. Bankrupt petrochemicals firm LyondellBasell recently rejected a bid from Reliance that valued the target at about $14.5 billion, and the Indian firm also lost a race for Canadian oil sands firm Value Creation, in which it wanted to take a majority stake for $2 billion.

In late 2008, Reliance commissioned a 580,000 barrels per day (bpd) refinery next to its existing 660,000 bpd plant at Jamnagar in the western Indian state of Gujarat. Together, the plants make up the world's largest oil refining complex.