IT glitch forces Singh to drop ONGC webcast
ONGC chairman Arun Singh has been forced to postpone plans to speak directly to the company's 28,000 employees because of an IT glitch.
On April 19 (2023), ONGC's executive committee led by Singh and three full-time directors was supposed to hold a webcast with all employees to address dissatisfaction with the current transfers and promotion policy. "This was the first time such an event was held at ONGC," says a source.
He adds that the internet connection went down five minutes after the webcast began while Singh was speaking. "He was on the first of six slides when the (internet) connection became fragile and finally dropped," we learn.
The connection never recovered, and the webcast was called off. Two days earlier (on 17 April), ONGC management posted a terse notice on ONGC's internal staff website stating: "[The] EC (executive committee) will address all ONGCians via a webcast on 19 April 2023 at 10am to explain the 'directional principles' for promotions and transfers in 2023."
The webcast began at 10.15 am when Singh, Pankaj Kumar, director production/human resources, and Pomila Jaspal, director finance, joined in from ONGC's corporate HQ in Delhi. Sushma Rawat, director exploration, joined in late from Mumbai.
"He (Singh) was upset," says a source. "You could tell from the look on his face."
Singh began the webcast with a slide showing ONGC's hydrocarbon production. "He praised the Ahmedabad, Mehsana and Agartala assets for maintaining production but expressed concern that the Bassein & Satellite, Mumbai High, and Ankleshwar assets were lagging behind," adds a source.
"He flagged this as a major concern." Singh stressed that ONGC produced 18m tonnes of oil this year (2022-23), while India's crude oil consumption was 250m tonnes during this period.
"He (Singh) wanted to know how India can be self-sufficient in crude oil when ONGC's contribution to domestic production isn't even 8% of consumption," we are told. Singh also dwelt on the Sakhalin-1 project in Russia, in which ONGC subsidiary OVL had farmed in 20% in July 2001.
Sakhalin production has been down after operator ExxonMobil quit following US and EU sanctions after Russia invaded Ukraine. "Singh said Sakhalin was a major concern, and that was why OVL's output had gone down."
Soon after, the internet connectivity dropped. "Even as Singh was speaking, around 160 comments (online) were received that the connection was bad or the audio quality was poor," we learn.