The Hindu Business Line : ONGC sees prospects in crisis management

ONGC seems to be smelling money in adversity. Capitalising on its success in crisis management during recent fire at Mumbai High North (MHN) offshore platform and the on-shore exploration rig at Pasarlapudi in Rajahmundry, ONGC is now exploring business opportunities for commercial exploitation of its crisis prevention and management abilities through consultancy.

The company's aspirations to create a separate division for offering such consultancy to oil companies worldwide received a boost when it was recently approached by Greater Nile Oil Project (GNOP) in Sudan which needed ONGC's services to prevent oil spill, preparing adequate infrastructure for prevention of fire and crisis management in its off-shore oil fields.

The job has been entrusted to the Institute of Petroleum Safety, Health and Environment (IPSHEM) - one of the many institutes and research agencies run by ONGC - in Goa.

The training provided by IPSHEM proved crucial in avoiding greater loss of lives and a large-scale environmental disaster during the MHN fire.

According to ONGC sources, while IPSHEM had already been offering its services to different companies including Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation (for preventing oil spill during exploration and production) and British Gas, GNOP has offered the biggest ever opportunity to ONGC to foray overseas in consultancy.

ONGC holds a minority 25 per cent stake in GNOP, whose majority stakeholders are China National Petroleum Corporation (40 per cent) and Petronas Carigali Overseas of Malaysia (30 per cent).

The project, located at the Muglad basin, is estimated to have a reserve of more than one billion barrels spread over10 fields.

Oil well fire fighting and blow out control is a multi-billion dollar industry worldwide for its own reasons, and is led by names such as Boots & Coots, Red Adair and others.

"Over the years ONGC had created adequate infrastructure to foster crisis management and prevent such incidents in case of any untoward incident taking place; that we are grossly successful in our effort was evident both in MHN fire and Pasarlapudi blow-out. The latter was brought under control in two days without any casualty. While we lost production of oil in MHN fire, it had also brought us international acclaim for managing the crisis most effectively. We are now hopeful of converting it into a business opportunity," a senior ONGC Official said.

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