Petroleum Minister Presents PetroFed Awards

The annual PetroFed Oil & Gas Industry Awards for 2012 for excellence in performance in various categories were presented by Minister for Petroleum & Natural Gas, Dr. M. Veerappa Moily here today. The awards for performance during fiscal 2011-12 were in 11 categories. The Minister congratulated the five companies in the private and eight companies in the public sector and the individuals who received the awards. He commended the apex hydrocarbon industry association for instituting the awards in 2007 to recognise and nurture talent and excellence in the oil & gas industry operating in India. The Secretary, Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas, Shri Vivek Rae in his address emphasized on the need to enhance domestic production of oil & gas to reduce imports. Welcoming invitees Chairman, PetroFed and Chairman, IndianOil Shri R. S. Butola highlighted the need for keeping the spirit of healthy competition alive through such awards. While giving a brief about the awards Director General, PetroFed Shri A. K. Arora pointed out that the awards were reviewed every year for improvement and all companies operating in India in the oil & gas sector were eligible without any application fee. In some cases a Special Commendation Award is conferred to encourage closely competing entries. The leading award winners were IndianOil, GAIL, ONGC and EIL. All awardees were presented a trophy and a citation. IndianOil bagged the Leading Oil & Gas Corporate Year of the award, the Oil & Gas Marketing – Company of the Year award and Special Commendations for Environment Sustainability Company of the Year and Innovator of the Year (Team) Award along with Engineers India Limited for developing Diesel Hydrotreating and Light Naphtha Isomerization technologies for product quality improvement. GAIL (India) Limited won the Awards for Oil & Gas Pipeline Transportation Company of the Year, Environmental Sustainability Company of the Year and Project Management (` 500-2000 crore) for their 100 MW wind generation project in Tamilnadu and Karnataka. ONGC won Awards for Exploration & Production Company of the Year, Project Management (above `2000 crore) for laying 44 submarine pipelines of 234 kms in its Mumbai offshore field. The ONGC team of their Institute of Oil & Gas Production Technology shared the Innovator of the Year (Team) Award with the Reliance Technology Group team of Reliance Industries Limited. Both teams also received a cash prize of ` 2.5 lakh each with each team member getting at least ` 50,000/-. The Refinery of the Year Award was bagged by Mangalore Refinery & Petrochemicals Limited while the Human Resources Management – Company of the Year Award by HPCL-Mittal Energy Limited. The Drilling Services – Company of the Year Award was bagged by Transocean. Special Commendation Awards were given to Cairn for Exploration & Production Company of the Year; Mumbai Refinery of Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited for Refinery of the Year and for Oil & Gas Pipeline Transportation – Company of the Year to Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited. For the third year in succession no individual award was conferred for Innovator of the Year. A Special Commendation was, however, conferred on Mr. Prafulla Mankar of HPCL for his development and implementation of remote operations of deluge valves in plant firefighting system leading to enhanced safety. Special Commendation Awards were also conferred for Innovator of the Year (Team) on Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited for their multi-metal corrosion inhibitor for use in ethanol gasoline blends and Engineers India Limited and Chennai Petroleum Corporation Limited for OxyEnrich process for capacity enhancement of Sulphur Recovery Unit. The Woman Executive of the Year was chosen as Ms. Sandepa Trakroo, Chief Manager (Corporate Planning) from GAIL (India) Limited. She also received a cash Award of ` one lakh in addition to a trophy and a citation. Special Commendation Awards in this category were also conferred on Ms. Jayati Ghosh, Dy. General Manager (Process, Design & Development), Engineers India Limited and Ms. Jaskinder Shingwekar, Vice President (Commercial), Corporate Planning & Pricing, Essar Oil Limited who received a trophy and a citation each. It was explained at the function that the award winners were selected through a rigorous process of collation by knowledge partner PricewaterhouseCoopers, evaluation by the Awards Committee led by Dr. Prodipto Ghosh, Distinguished Fellow, TERI and former Secretary to the Government of India and selection thereafter by an eminent Jury headed by the former Chief Justice of India, Hon’ble Mr. Justice M. N. Venkatachaliah. The other two members of the Jury are Dr. Anil Kakodkar, Chairman, National Solar Energy Corporation of India and former Chairman, Atomic Energy Commission and Shri Naresh Narad, former Chairman, Public Enterprises Selection Board and Secretary to the Government of India.