S K Sharma quits Mittals to join Glencore

S K Sharma, one of the two high profile officers steel czar Lakshmi N Mittal had hired for his ventures with state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corp, has quit Mittal Investment Sarl to join trading house Glencore.

Mittal had hired Sharma, a BPCL executive, in October 2005 to head his oil and gas trading venture ONGC-Mittal Energy Services Ltd (OMESL). In October last year, Sharma was moved to Mittal Investment Sarl after almost winding up OMESL as ONGC showed little interest in the venture.

Sharma earlier this month quit Mittal Investment Sarl, the Luxembourg-registered holding company of Mittal family, to join Glencore, industry sources said.

Naresh K Nayyar, the Indian Oil Corp executive who was hired to head ONGC-Mittal Energy Ltd (the joint venture for acquisition of oil and gas properties), has already quit and joined Essar Oil.

In place of Nayyar, V Ravindranath, who retired as executive director from ONGC, was appointed as CEO of OMEL which now is left with only four employees. Mittal has already moved the CFO of the company to one of his ventures in Kazakhstan.

ONGC and Mittal had in July 2005 come together to form OMEL and OMESL. While OMEL picked up a handful of exploration blocks, OMESL existed only on paper.

Sources said Mittal had never been happy with the progress at OMESL. Apparently, ONGC, after the exit of flamboyant Chairman and Managing Director Subir Raha, was not keen on trading and shipping of oil and gas (including LNG).

The state-run firm had not even contributed its share of capital and the company survived all this while only on Mittal's contribution.