 "ONGC")
It wasn't easy for Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) to get an endorsement from a committee that its share of gas was being produced by the operator of a neighbouring block. While resolving the dispute surrounding the gas flow in the Krishna-Godavari (KG) basin is an onerous task, though the government has a good six months before the Delhi High Court's deadline of June 1, 2016, ends, acknowledging the matter as a dispute itself was a coup for ONGC.
In a rare case of locking horns with its promoters, ONGC had even made the Government of India and its upstream arm, directorate general of hydrocarbons (DGH), respondents in the case. Though the company exploited the political window available, the decision would not have been possible, had it not been for two people.
Dinesh K Sarraf, chairman and managing director, who presided over a crucial ONGC board meeting was one. He and a little known Indian Administrative Service officer, Giridhar Aramane, who represented the government on the company's board, were crucial to the decision.
"Aramane prevailed over the board to make the government a party. Even the ONGC chairman could not help it," said a former executive aware of the proceedings. This was unusual because Aramane was joint secretary in the ministry of petroleum and natural gas, who wore the dual hat of being a government director and officer in-charge of upstream oil & gas business in the ministry. For the Andhra Pradesh-cadre officer, this was his first stint in the central government, except for a previous three-year tenure in the Insurance and Regulatory Development Authority of India.
Till then, a number of meetings had taken place among officials in the government, DGH, ONGC and Reliance Industries (RIL) executives. All along, RIL had disputed ONGC's apprehension, more so because the government company had not drilled any production well in its area till then.
Aramane's tenure in the ministry lasted a little over two years. In June 2014, by when the Narendra Modi government was in place, the 1988-batch officer was recalled by his cadre state upon a personal request by Andhra chief minister Chandrababu Naidu. He was already known to have ruffled weathers with UPA minister Veerappa Moily.
The government changed, but Sarraf was left to face flak from the new government on making it a party. This added to the problems he was facing with Dharmendra Pradhan, the Modi government's petroleum minister. The first-time minister was known to be brash with UPA-appointed public sector chiefs in his initial days. The same approach was followed by Saurabh Chandra, then petroleum secretary. Although bridges have been built between the ministry and ONGC, the dispute has crossed a stage where it can be brushed under the carpet.
Exactly a month after Aramane left the ministry, the government appointed US-based DeGoyler & MacNaughton an independent third-party expert to go into the matter and take a view on whether natural gas had flowed from ONGC's share of reserves in the adjoining two blocks in the KG basin to that of RIL's KG-D6. The findings are crucial for establishing whether the two companies share a common reservoir as neigbhours or whether it was deliberate extraction by RIL. Although the commonality of the reservoir rules out the second, it is now left to Pradhan to take a call, based on the advice of U P Singh, Aramane's successor in the ministry, and DGH.
