Arun Kumar Singh gets rare one-year extension as ONGC chairman till 2026

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Arun Kumar Singh has been granted a rare one-year extension as chairman of ONGC, in signs that the government may have wanted continuity to consolidate the gains India's top oil and gas producer has made under his leadership.

Singh, 63, will continue as the chairman of Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) till December 6, 2026, according to an official order that cited a decision made by the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

In 2022, he became the first near-60 executive ever to be appointed chairman of a blue-chip PSU. Now, in another unprecedented move, his tenure will run until age 64.

Industry sources said Singh brought the much needed stability in management at ONGC, helping reverse the decade-long decline in production of crude oil, which is feedstock for making petrol and diesel, and natural gas, which is used to produce power, make fertilizer, turned into CNG to run automobiles and fire household kitchens.

Under him, ONGC stitched a technical collaboration with super major BP for revival of its flagship Mumbai High oil and gas fields. The BP partnership has helped arrest the decline in output at the field and is likely to show positive results from the next year.

The government had toyed with the idea of bringing in a technical partner for some of the ONGC's mainstay but declining fields for almost eight years but the proposal never made progress. It finally worked under Singh.

Singh also oversaw the start of oil production from the delayed KG-DWN-98/2 field in the Krishna Godavari basin.

A mechanical engineer from National Institute of Technology, Patna, he is known for being a tough taskmaster and a man with great insights into the functioning of the oil and gas sector.

A search-cum-selection committee, constituted by the oil ministry, picked Singh in August 2022, two months before he attained superannuation age of 60 years. He was appointed as ONGC chairman with effect from December 6, 2022, after necessary vettings.

In October that year, he retired as the chairman and managing director of Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL), India's second largest state-owned oil refining and fuel marketing company. In BPCL, he was Director (Marketing) from October 2018 to September 2021, after which he was elevated as chairman and managing director of the company.

The ACC has approved "re-employment of Arun Kumar Singh as chairman, ONGC on contract basis for a further period of one-year with effect from December 7, 2025, or till assumption of charge of the post by the regular incumbent, or until further orders, whichever is the earliest, on terms and conditions to be finalised by the Ministry (of Petroleum and Natural Gas) in consultation with the Department of Public Enterprises," the official order dated December 2 said.

It also constituted a search-cum-selection committee under government headhunter Public Enterprise Selection Board (PESB) chairman to identify and select a regular chairman of ONGC. Other members of the three-member panel are Secretary to the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas and former IOC chairman B Ashok as an outside expert of eminence.

PESB had in April this year called for applications to select a regular chairman to replace Singh, when his three-year term was to end on December 6. More than a dozen candidates, including Oil India Ltd chairman and managing director Ranjit Rath, applied.

The government headhunter never interviewed any of them, even though it did and selected the chairman of gas utility GAIL (India) Ltd, where applications came in much later.

It is immediately not known why PESB did not interview the candidates who had applied.

Prior to Singh's appointment, ONGC had been without a full-time head since April 2021 - a period during which the firm saw record three interim heads. It was previously headed by a chairman and managing director, but in the case of Singh, the order states that he has been appointed as chairman.

Before being picked up by the oil ministry's search-cum-selection committee on August 27, 2022, Singh was already selected to head the Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board (PNGRB). He never joined PNGRB.

Prior to his ONGC appointment, Singh's nearly 38 years of experience in the oil and gas industry included retail, LPG, pipelines and supply chain optimisation.

He also held the position of President (Africa & Australasia) in Bharat PetroResources Ltd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of BPCL, engaged in the exploration of oil and gas, largely overseas.

Singh became eligible for consideration for the job at ONGC in 2022 after the oil ministry relaxed age-related criteria.

Eligibility criteria for a board-level position at the PSU provide that an internal candidate (applicant from within the PSU) should not be more than 58 years of age on the date of the vacancy. The maximum age for external candidates is 57 years on the date of the vacancy.

The ministry changed it to state that any candidate to be eligible for consideration should not be more than 60 years of age on the date of occurrence of the vacancy, according to the ministry's office memorandum sent to DoPT on June 17, 2022. The vacancy at ONGC arose on March 31, 2021.