Countdown begins to select new ONGC Chmn.
ONGC is expecting a raft of applications for its CMD role by the end of this month (March 2025) and with some luck, this might even lead to a selection.
As you'd expect, ONGC and Oil India applicants stand the best chance. But only if the PESB doesn't repeat what happened in June 2021, when it failed to make a recommendation and left the decision to a search and selection committee, which chose Arun Singh.
On March 3 (2025), the PESB released the eagerly awaited notice inviting applications to replace Singh as ONGC chairman. From ONGC, the HR director Manish Patil is the only board-level representative with at least two years to retire from the date the job becomes available on December 7 (2025), in line with PESB rules.
Born in February 1968, Patil retires on February 29 (2028). Unlucky for him, however, is that HR is not mentioned in the PESB eligibility criteria.
Sushma Rawat, director exploration, is out of luck because she retires on June 30 (2025). So too is the director of strategy and corporate affairs, Arunangshu Sarkar, who retires on February 28 (2026); director finance Vivek Tongaonkar retires on April 30 (2026); director production Pankaj Kumar retires on June 30 (2026), and director technology and field services Vikram Saxena retires on July 31 (2027).
All are ineligible. Worth noting, however, is that Arun Singh retired on October 31 (2022) as CMD of BPCL but was appointed ONGC chairman on December 7 (2022) - marking the unprecedented appointment of a retired person to head a state-owned oil company.
Despite the lack of eligible ONGC directors, several EDS will be eligible. But some of them retire in 2028-29 following "unusual 'fast-track' promotions" from CGM to ED.
"At ONGC, officers usually get promoted to ED when they have two to three years to retire," we hear. However, after the "unusual promotions" for some CGMs, ONGC introduced rules in January 2024 stating that all CGMs must wait at least three years to become GGMs while GGMs must wait at least two years to become EDs.
No such rule exists in other state-owned oil companies where a CGM can, if eligible, become an ED within a year.