ONGC Director (Exploration) Sushma Rawat

Ms. Sushma Rawat, Executive Director-Basin Manager, Assam & Assam Arakan Basin and OSD – Exploration, has taken over the charge of Director (Exploration), ONGC from 1 January 2023. She takes over the reins of Nation's top Exploration position in the flagship NOC E&P Company, after earlier Director (Exploration) Rajesh Kumar Srivastava superannuated on 31 December 2022. Ms. Rawat is also on Board of ONGC Tripura Power Company Limited; she had been on the Board of ONGC Petro Additions Ltd..

An industry veteran with 33 years experience and Exploration Manager par excellence with diverse professional and industry expertise, she brings with her a richness and diversity of perspectives that will benefit the organization in its exploration strategies.

As Basin Manager of A&AA Basin, her dynamic efforts catalyzed several new technologies; some of the noteworthy ones are : Node Based Seismic Data Acquisition system, Passive Seismic Tomography (PST), Airborne Hydrocarbon Sensing Survey (AHSS) which are of paramount importance for geologically complex and logistically difficult terrains of Assam Arakan Fold Belt areas. She has been the guiding energy behind the resolution of various long-pending issues like exploration in DAB areas, the simplification of Forest clearance and LAQ process. Realizing the significance of industry academia collaboration, her initiatives resulted in MOUs being signed with North East Hill University NEHU, Shillong and CSIR-NEIST, Jorhat, to carry out collaborative projects under strategic alliances.

A Post-Graduate in Geology, she has an "International Certificate Program in Business Management" course at ASCI, Hyderabad and at Faculty of Economics, University of Ljubljana (FELU), Slovenia, in 2014, under the aegis of DPE.

She started her career as GT in ONGC as an operations geologist at Cauvery Basin in 1989. After stints at KDMIPE Dehradun followed by Kerala-Konkan Basin in Mumbai, she joined KDMIPE in 2013 with the  responsibility of realizing first Basin-scale 3D Petroleum System Modelling on a regional framework for Mumbai Offshore Basin, and followed by KG Basin 3D PSM. Under her dynamic leadership, Basin scale 3D-Petroleum Systems modeling of 11 Basins, including AAFB was carried out. This earned her the distinction of being an experienced and outstanding Basin and Petroleum System Analyst as well as an expert Exploration Process Analyst and Implementer. Her outstanding contribution was recognized through the CMD Award in 2015 for leading a team in ‘Maiden basin scale study in ONGC to understand the petroleum systems of category I & II sedimentary basins of India’.

Ms. Rawat, as an integral part of Government of India’s initiative for appraising the un-appraised basins of the country and bringing new areas in exploration fold, headed the MDT team for Resource reassessment of Mumbai Offshore Basin under "Re-assessment of Hydrocarbon Resources for Sedimentary Basins and Deep-Water areas of India". She was the core team member of the Central Team for 26 basins from 2015-2017.

Ms. Rawat was the Lead member of the ONGC team for identifying and assessing of new areas in Cat-I, Cat-II and Cat-III basins of the country based on the data available in-house and new NSP data. She was also the Nodal person for working out the requirement and techno-financial details of parametric wells and planning of NSP lines in all Lesser Explored Basins (Cat-II & III) and un-probed areas of Cat-I basins of India. Her Work-flow for PFA (Play Fairway Analysis) based on 3D BPSM studies became a template & standard Work-Flow for subsequent PFAs done in ONGC and Resource Assessment. She was the team leader for an initiative on “Building Capabilities in Advanced Exploration” as a part of ONGC’s Long Term Energy Strategy 2040.

Her visionary work on “Planning, Monitoring, Evaluation & Benchmarking of R&D Projects in an Integrated National Oil Company", presented at ASCI Hyderabad and “Process & Parameters - Driver for Furtherance of Exploration Investment” presented at FIPI R&D Conclave-2019 were widely acclaimed by the E&P fraternity.

She has published a number of technical papers in national and international forums which includes technical presentations made in EAGE & SEG platforms abroad. An avid geologist, she participated in and organized numerous Geological Field workshops on Modern Deltas in Kakinada, Cretaceous of Trichinapalli, Jurassic of Kutch, Triassic of Spiti, as well as Himalayan Foreland basin around Mussoorie-Dehradun & the tectonic realm of Karakoram-Zanskar around Leh. She has been actively associated as a founding member of various geotechnical societies along with organizing International G&G Conferences like PETROTECH and GEO-India.

Considering ONGC’s Exploration thrust for bringing up more Category II and III basins to the Hydrocarbon Map of India, the exploration fraternity of ONGC is looking up to her valuable stewardship in the domain of Data-driven decision optimization in oil and gas value chain.