OIL RIG: Plumbing New Depths

• Why did the ongc hire as many as four international consultants in the last three years without any tender—at a cost of $20 million each—to do almost similar assignments? Surprisingly, one of them even admitted that it had no technical knowledge but could act only as a catalyst between the top brass and middle-level management!
• Why didn't the petroleum minister react to confidential letters addressed to him by former Bharatiya Janata Party president Kushabhau Thakre and the Gujarat and Maharashtra chief ministers, exhorting him to back the right candidate to ensure that the ongc is free from any controversies?
• Why did the corporation take more than a quarter of a century to plan the second phase of development of Bombay High? And why is it opposed to foreign participation in the $640 million project, especially when global giants are ready to invest on ongc terms and the nation is looking at a whopping $100 billion energy purchase bill over the next decade?
• Why is it that while on the one hand ongc planned the two-phase development of Bombay High North (bhn) and Bombay High South (bhs), the ministry, on the other hand, circulated a confidential note to the minister and top officials of the pmo, expressing serious doubts about increasing output by another 12 to 14 per cent from the 1,600 million tonne reservoir (which accounts for more than 40 per cent of ongc's total 5,00,000 barrels a day output)?

Hardliners in the ministry stress that it's vital for New Delhi to beef up exploration and production activity since India's petroleum demand will exceed 112 million tonnes by 2001-2 as against the current domestic production of 30 million tonnes per annum and an oil import bill grossing well over Rs 125,000 crore. And it's not just oil, the nation faces serious tensions in gas where the current supply of 68 mmscmd (million standard cubic metre per day) is far less than the demand of 146 mmscmd, a figure which will increase by eight times over the next seven years.

And therein lies the problem in the Rs 175,000 crore Indian hydrocarbon sector. With the increasing significance of ongc, one naturally assumes that the corporation will get a crusader at the helm who'll double up as a catalyst for all subsequent manoeuverings. But ongc, it seems to remain mired in the controversies it has been in since inception.