PETRO-ASSET. Hindustan Oil Exploration Company’s Bombay offshore rig

For long, Hindustan Oil Exploration Company Limited (HOEC) has been like a plane waiting on a runway for ATC clearance. Promoted in 1983 by HT Parekh, better known for creating the HDFC group, HOEC has seen several changes in management. But it was only in early 2015, when Pandarinathan Elango and Ramasamy Jeevanandam — friends from their days at ONGC — took over the reins, that things began looking up. The duo gingered up work at the Dirok gas field in Assam and secured a couple of attractive hydrocarbon assets — Kharsang in Arunachal Pradesh and B-80 in Bombay Offshore.

However, starting production from B-80 proved to be a bigger technical challenge than initially believed. A cost-saving “let’s do it ourselves” decision was partly to blame. At Dirok, the problem lay outside the company’s control: a connecting gas pipeline project remains unfinished, so production remains below potential.

Dirok and B-80 are the main drivers of profitability in the near term; raising production at Dirok and putting B-80 back on the rails would swing fortunes back in the company’s favour. Kharsang, PY-1 in the Bay of Bengal, and some assets in the Cambay region are still a few years from yielding fruit.

Leadership change

On April 1, HOEC announced a change at the top. Managing Director Jeevanandam left the company (Elango had retired earlier) and Baroruchi Mishra, an independent director and hydrocarbon veteran, took over as MD and CEO, raising hopes that a technically strong hand could change the company’s fortunes.

Mishra outlined to businessline a few new initiatives. Tellingly, he mentioned “strategic partnerships” — though as part of a longer-term approach. He spoke of unlocking value in the company’s existing assets, with an emphasis on digitalisation to improve production efficiency, reduce downtime, optimise reservoir management and strengthen decision-making. That is the immediate task.

It is ironic that at a time when the country needs gas, a company is unable to supply because of delays in a crucial pipeline project. A 50 km interconnection between two pipeline systems — the Duliajan Numaligarh pipeline and Indradhanush gas grid pipeline (which moves gas from the North-East to consumption centres elsewhere) — was not completed by March as expected.

Once it is ready, production from Dirok could rise to 45 million cubic ft a day — roughly three times the current level. HOEC’s revenues could rise sharply.

As for B-80, Mishra spoke of accelerating oil recovery through de-bottlenecking offshore processing facilities, targeted workovers and deployment of digital surveillance systems to optimise performance. One of the two wells needs a repair.

The troubles at Dirok and B-80 dragged HOEC’s revenue down to ₹81 crore in the third quarter of 2025–26, from ₹156 crore in the corresponding period of the previous year; profit slid to ₹8.28 crore from ₹43.32 crore.

Parallelly, the newly awarded B-15 offshore field is to be fast-tracked for commercialisation. In Kharsang, the company plans to raise production by drilling more wells.

The road ahead

For the long term, Mishra intends to keep adding assets to ensure the reserve replacement ratio remains above 1— that is, more reserves are added than extracted. He also intends to “forge strategic partnerships for exploration and production opportunities, particularly in technically complex deep-water developments, where collaboration can unlock scale and capability advantages”.

HOEC will also evaluate adding green fuels such as compressed biogas and bioLNG to its portfolio, combining “conventional upstream strength with emerging low-carbon opportunities”.

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Published on April 27, 2026