PM internship scheme: 6K interns in ONGC's plan for offshore, drilling jobs

Oil & Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) plans to outsource key technical roles on offshore rigs and drilling platforms and aims to incorporate accredited interns selected under the Prime Minister Internship Scheme into these roles, Director (Strategy and Corporate Affairs) Arunangshu Sarkar told Business Standard. However, Sarkar said the exploration and production giant has yet to receive enough applications to fill the 6,000 internship positions it has offered.

 

“We are planning to outsource technical jobs on the rigs and platforms. We plan to train the interns in these areas of operation and certify them. We will tell the operations and maintenance (O&M) companies to hire them, given their certification,” Sarkar explained. The move is also part of the company’s aim to expand skills in the sector. 

“We will utilise the interns through O&M contractors across onshore and offshore. Currently, the quality of manpower supplied by contractors is low, often with little training and no experience. Our initiative will increase safety at our installations, considering the interns will be trained in a particular role,” Sarkar said. 

Sarkar also revealed that ONGC has completed a green hydrogen pilot at the Nandasan group gathering station in Mehsana, Gujarat. 

The company has begun producing green hydrogen by electrolysing wastewater produced from oil and gas wells, ONGC aims to produce 40-50 kilograms of hydrogen per day from another pilot in Bengaluru.

 

There are also plans to establish a green hydrogen plant at the Tatipaka refinery in Andhra Pradesh and the Mangalore refinery in Karnataka, Sarkar said. 

ONGC has completed preliminary studies to establish 15 compressed biogas (CBG) plants. 

“The number of operators in CBG is very low. Establishing cost and price reasonability is an issue, considering it is a new sector,” the director said. 

ONGC is currently mandated by the government to establish 25 CBG plants. 

Eyeing more renewable assets 

Two years ago, ONGC became the first public sector energy company to create the position of director (strategy and corporate affairs) to drive a new push into renewables, downstream sectors, and exploration and production, while strengthening global and local partnerships. The first appointee to the role, Sarkar said ONGC is keen on acquiring more renewable assets, both organically and inorganically. 

The company’s foremost joint venture in the renewables space, ONGC NTPC Green — a 50:50 joint venture between ONGC Green and NTPC Green Energy — will have projects and timelines in place by the end of 2025-26, he said. 

The company has already placed a tender to build 1 gigawatt of solar and wind power. It is also adopting round-the-clock storage battery technology, which stores energy to provide a reliable power supply 24 hours a day. 

“Last summer in India, there wasn’t a single instance of load-shedding during the day; it only happened at night. Our aim is now to provide power during peak demand hours. We can earn more money since peak-hour rates are higher, while the nation can receive electricity supply throughout the day and night,” Sarkar stressed. 

On the other hand, Sarkar said investments in carbon capture, utilisation, and storage do not make commercial sense at present.

Using its Rs 200 crore startup fund, the company is also supporting a large number of startups, whose valuations have increased ‘manifold’, Sarkar said.