Board Members

Ms. Sushma Rawat, Chairperson, OTBL


Ms. Sushma Rawat, Chairperson, OTBL

Ms. Sushma Rwat assumed the charge as Chairperson of the Company on 10th January, 2023. Ms. Sushma Rawat is Chairperson and Director of OTBL and is the Director (Exploration) of Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited (ONGC) and is also on Board of ONGC Tripura Power Company Limited. She had been on the Board of ONGC Petro Additions Ltd.

She took over the reins of Nation's top Exploration position in the flagship NOC E&P Company.

An industry veteran with over 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. 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 again joined KDMIPE in 2013 and under her dynamic leadership, Basin scale 3D-Petroleum Systems Modelling of 11 Basins was carried out.

As Basin Manager of A&AA Basin, her dynamic efforts earned praise for induction of several new technologies and resolution of various long-pending issues like exploration in DAB areas, 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.

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. 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 and was also the Nodal person for working out the requirement & 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.

She has published a number of technical papers in national and international forums which includes technical presentations made in EAGE & SEG platforms abroad 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.

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, Himalayan Foreland basin around Mussoorie-Dehradun and 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.

Dr. Banwari Lal, Managing Director, OTBL


Dr. Banwari Lal, Managing Director, OTBL

Dr. Banwari Lal currently holds the position of Senior Director and heads the Environmental and Industrial Biotechnology Division at The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), located in New Delhi. Additionally, he serves as the Managing Director at ONGC TERI Biotech Ltd (OTBL), a joint venture company between ONGC and TERI. Dr. Banwari Lal obtained his PhD from the University of Rajasthan, Jaipur in 1987 and serves as an adjunct faculty member at TERI School of Advanced Studies. Under his supervision, fifteen students have successfully obtained their PhD degrees from TERI School of Advanced Studies.

Furthermore, in 2005, Dr. Banwari Lal served as a visiting professor at the Department of Microbiology, School of Medical Sciences, Stanford University, California, USA. His primary area of interest is Petroleum Biotechnology, and he has successfully developed three patented technologies: "Oilzapper" for bioremediation of oil spills, "Microbial Enhanced Oil Recovery," and "Prevention of paraffin deposition in oil well tubing and flow lines."

Dr. Banwari Lal has 9 patents to his name and has published 107 research papers in peer-reviewed journals with high impact factors. He is also the author of 2 books and several book chapters. The citation count of his research papers stands at 9028, with an h-index of 40 and an i10-index of 175.

He has received numerous national and international awards for the development of technologies, including the Tata Innovation Fellowship Award in 2010 by DBT; the PetroFed Innovator of the Year Award in 2009 by MoPNG; Biotech Product & Development award in 2008 by Department of Biotechnology, Government of India; National Research Development Corporation Award in 2005 by DST; National Bioscience Award for Career Development in 2004 by DBT; Biotech Product & Process Development in 2002 by DBT and All India Biotech Association award in 2001 by All India Biotech Association.

Dr. Banwari Lal is a member of various scientific expert committees and has served on several advisory and expert committees for the Department of Biotechnology and the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India. He is also a life member of AMI and a member of the Board of ONGC TERI Biotech Ltd (OTBL).

Dr. Dipankar Saharia, Director, OTBL


Dr. Dipankar Saharia, Director, OTBL

Dr. Dipankar Saharia heads TERI’s Administrative Services Division, TERI's Regional Centres and guides a few other Divisions; earlier he was heading TERI’s North-Eastern Regional Centre. He was with the Government of Assam as an officer of the Assam Civil Services. He held the positions of Assistant Commissioner and later Officer on Special Duty at the Personnel Department and Science & Technology Department, Government of Assam from 1997 to 2009 and was also on deputation to TERI. Dr Saharia also worked with TERI from 1995 to 1996 for the Tissue Culture Pilot Project (now MTP) before joining Assam Civil Service.

Dr. Saharia has a Masters in Science and Ph.D. from Gauhati University. His expertise lies in the areas of biotechnology, natural resource management and rural development where he has undertaken several projects and studies in the fields of watershed management, Micropropagation, Renewable Energy and biofuels. He has been the PI of several mission mode projects for the north-eastern region, including the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) Mission for Quality Planting Material Production and Utilization for the North East, DBT's Jatropha Micro Mission, DNA Club (DBT’s Natural Resource Awareness Programme Club) in Northeastern Region and Mini Mission I under Horticulture Mission, ICAR.

Shri Sudip Gupta, Director, OTBL


Shri Sudip Gupta, Director, OTBL

Mr. Sudip Gupta is Asset Manager of Mehsana Asset which is ONGC’s highest producing Onshore Asset. He joined Mehsana Asset as the Asset Manager in Feb’2022 when Mehsana Asset was gearing for major facilities revamping and implementing various Enhanced/Improved Oil Recovery Technologies. In Feb’2023, Mehsana Asset has produced average 6000 tpd of oil under his leadership which is highest in recent times. Prior to this, he was entrusted with the responsibility of Asset Manager of ONGC Cambay Asset where he ably played pivotal leadership role in multifold increase of Asset’s production in a very short tenure.

Mr. Sudip Gupta, a graduate in Mechanical Engineering from NIT, Silchar had joined ONGC in 1989. He is specialized in Well Services Operations and Offshore Engineering Services and has a rich experience of 34 years in Oil & Gas Industry. He also holds an MBA degree in Finance from Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies.

He is a firm supporter of “Smart Oil Fields”. Currently, Mehsana Asset is taking many digitisation initiatives under his leadership. Real time monitoring System in all flowing oil wells, IOPS in Nandasan Plant are some of the already implemented initiatives.

Mehsana Asset under his leadership is also taking various ESG (Environment, Social & Governance) initiatives. Surface disposal of treated effluent water, Solar mounted SRPs, RTP pipelines are some of the many which will help reducing carbon footprint of the Asset.

In his 13 years of association with Offshore Engineering Services, he was instrumental in envisaging process facilities of many Offshore Process and Well Head Platforms and Pipelines. He was one of the key MDT members in conceptualizing the developments of NBP, C-Series and Daman fields of ONGC. He closely worked with M/s Shell Global Solutions to bring the first ever Offshore Gas sweeting facilities in B-193 Platform of ONGC. In one of his prestigious overseas assignment with ONGC Videsh Limited, Mr Gupta was instrumental in completing the 720 km pipeline project from Khartoum to Port Sudan.

He was also conferred “Professional of the year” award in 2007 in ONGC for his innovative ideas in 170 km C-Series Gas Pipeline.

ONGC Well Services fraternity considers him as a leader with connections at grass root level because of his vast experience and long associations with Work over and WCT operations right from the level of Shift In-charge to Head Well Services. He has implemented a lot of automation in Work over rigs to reduce manual interventions and enhance safety.

Mr. Gupta is a long-distance runner with the honour of running half marathon (21.0975 Km) in all the versions of Mumbai Marathon since its inception in 2004. He is also a very avid golfer.