More power to them: Women who break the glass ceiling in the world of oil

At more than 11,800 feet from sea level in Phey Village of Ladakh, Padma Angmo and 10 other women work at the world’s highest LPG bottling plant. Run by Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), the country’s largest fuel retailer, the plant ensures cooking gas access to far-flung areas of Ladakh and Kargil, besides serving the security forces.

“I feel proud to serve the people of region,” says Padma, a local who has been employed here since its commissioning in 2001-02. At the site, where temperature can fall to minus 30 degrees, women make up more than half the staff of 20. Their activities  include filling and handling of cylinders, performing quality control checks, maintenance of the plant, managing documents, gardening and looking after the canteen. They represent a change in the oil and gas sector where gender diversity is the lowest across industries globally. Even more so in India. “While women account for 28 per cent of the total workforce in India, the share of women in oil and gas is the lowest across major sectors at 8 per cent,” says Anirban Mukherjee, partner and director, The Boston Consulting Group (BCG).   

According to a report by the BCG, women participation in senior leadership globally in the oil and gas sector is 17 per cent but the share in India is just 5 per cent. The sector reflects a similar trend within the government. There has never been a woman minister at the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas. Nor has it ever been represented by a woman secretary, the senior-most bureaucrat in a ministry.

The strength of women in other sectors in India is much higher--healthcare at 48 per cent, education 49 per cent, hospitality 16 per cent, manufacturing 18 per cent, finance 31 per cent and information technology 25 per cent.

Narayani Mahil, director communications at BP Plc in India and a former head of the communications division of Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), however, says, "I feel the oil and gas industry is hugely misunderstood.’’ Mahil had an unusual experience when she got the offer to join the Corporate Planning and Management Service of the country's largest oil and gas producer in 1984. “For almost two years, I was on and off the job because I told the company I had a small child,” she says. The fact that she had a woman general manager Reena Ramachandran as her department head helped.

Even as a grandmother now, Mahil was allowed to work out of the Sydney office of the current employer BP when her daughter had a child recently.

Many believe that the 2017 decision by the Narendra Modi government to double maternity leave to six months, putting it ahead of many developed countries including France, Germany, Japan and Australia, was a landmark move in bringing down the attrition rate. Some companies such as Reliance Industries have reportedly set up an extension programme linked to maternity leave and part-time working plans.

The BCG report says to close the gender wage gap, it is important to broaden the outreach to key educational areas and institutions, have a gender diverse selection panel, provide flexi-work programme for retention and targeted mentoring for advancement to top posts.

Shell, which appointed Yasmine Hilton as the first woman head of an oil company in India, has globally set a target of having 50 per cent of the workforce as women. The immediate target is to make it 20 in the next one year. Shell India has already crossed this mark and its lubricant business is being headed by Mansi Madan Tripathy.

"It's refreshing to find women engineer trainees in the oil fields, women in operations, production, and technical functions," says Madhavi Jha, chief communication officer, Cairn Oil and Gas, a Vedanta group vertical. She says the organisation is sharply focused on improving the gender balance further for the right reasons - to tap the best talent across both genders, to leverage diversity in skills and creativity, all of which have contributed to the bottom line.