Oil sector gains momentum again; Nishi Vasudeva becomes first ever female CMD of a Navratna PSU

HPCL new CMD Nishi Vasudeva

GIVEN a series of key developments unfolding in the last week of February, India’s oil sector has hit headlines in nation’s financial dailies. Nishi Vasudeva has become the first woman to head a blue-chip PSU when the 58 year old lady took over as the chairman and managing director of Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd (HPCL). She is the first woman to be appointed...
as C&MD of a Navratna PSU. Ms Vasudeva was director (marketing) in HPCL before replacing Subir Roy Choudhury as the chief of the company. Choudhury retired on February 28 on attaining the retirement age of 60 years.
Ms Vasudeva, who had created history in July 2011 when she became the first women ever to make to the board of cash-rich oil PSU, is also vice president- Youth & Gender, World Petroleum Council. An alumnus of Indian Institute of Management-Calcutta, Vasudeva has a wide exposure in the petroleum Industry spanning over 36 years in various streams like marketing, corporate strategy and planning, information systems, etc, said a company statement.
Beginning her career in the oil industry with Engineers India Ltd (EIL), she served as executive director of LPG at HPCL and was also chairperson of Bhagyanagar Gas Ltd.
With hardly few days left for electoral model code of conduct to come into force, the present government at Centre is unlikely take a call on contentious gas pricing issue, an issue that has played a key in the fall of 49-day-old Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government in Delhi. In the absence of a global market price for gas, it is a hard nut to crack for the government also to fix domestic gas price unlike the crude oil prices
Yet another key development was the appointment of Dinesh K Sarraf as the new chairman and managing director of ONGC, the nation's most profitable PSU.
Sarraf replaced Sudhir Vasudeva, who was denied a post-retirement one-year extension of service even though oil minister M Veerappa Moily had strongly batted for his extension.
Earlier, Sarraf was serving as MD of ONGC's overseas arm ONGC Videsh Limited. Sarraf earned lot of praises for reviving OVL, which had faced a tough time following the disastrous acquisition of Russia-focused Imperial Energy in 2009.
OVL, which had since inception invested $17 billion in 32 assets in 15 countries until 2011, closed deals worth over $11 billion since 2012 under Sarraf.
As ONGC head, his immediate priority will be to raise stagnant oil and gas output and aggressively look for more reserves.
Meanwhile, Saurabh Chandra also took charge as the secretary in the ministry of petroleum & natural gas on March 1. So with a new boss at the ministry, the oil sector is likely to gain strength in the coming months.