Mr Ashok Varma is the new Director (Onshore) of Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Ltd. Mr Varma has taken charge of the office of Director (Onshore) today.

Prior to his joining as Director (Onshore), he was heading the Eastern Offshore Asset at Kakinanda, where he was instrumental in putting the Eastern Offshore Asset on production. Earlier, Mr Varma steered the Imperial Energy in Russia, a subsidiary of the ONGC Videsh Limited (OVL), as the Chief Executive Officer and played an important role in materialising the ‘Sakhalin-D’ project.

Mr Varma pursued the hydrocarbon opportunities abroad as a part of senior management of ONGC Videsh Ltd between 1996 and 2006. He was instrumental in acquiring 20% participating interest in Sakhalin-1 project in Russia by OVL in 2001. He also headed ONGC’s Assam operations as Asset Manager from 2006 to 2009.

A graduate in Petroleum Engineering from Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad, Mr Varma joined ONGC in 1977 as Assistant Engineer at Assam. During his early years at ONGC, he was actively engaged in design and engineering of offshore platform in western offshore. Subsequently, he served in Western Onshore at Ankleshwar where he extensively worked on water management leading to initiation of pressure maintenance in Gandhar field.