Tankiwala leaves Mittal refinery under a cloud
Hindustan Mittal Energy has appointed US national Martin Hawkins as Chief Operating Officer of its 9m t/y refinery in Punjab replacing former HPCL director Moiz Tankiwala, who held the post since March 2009 as a ‘consultant’.
Tankiwala, till January 2009 director refineries at Mumbai-based refiner HPCL, is believed to have abruptly left his post after disagreement with Prabh Das, a former joint secretary refineries and HMEL managing director. “Das called an urgent staff meeting a day before Hawkins was appointed,” said a source.
“Tankiwala did not meet Das and left without informing anybody.” Before his appointment, Hawkins was Production Manager at the 160,000 b/d Golden Eagle Refinery owned by US-based Tesoro Corporation in San Francisco.
He was appointed on September 15. Bhatinda was commissioned by prime minister Manmohan Singh on April 28 this year and is owned by HMEL (49%), HPCL (49%), and financial institutions (1%).