In an indication that Moscow may be aiming to strengthen economic ties with India, a former director of the Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) has been appointed to the board of the Russian oil giant Rosneft.
According to a statement released by the Russian company, one of the three new faces added to Rosneft’s 11-person board of directors is Govind K Satish, who left his position as director for commercial development at the IOC in 2021. Satish, 62, will be the first Indian to be appointed to Rosneft’s board of directors.
Satish’s hiring becomes significant given that Rosneft is now looking to do more business with Indian companies, including the sale of liquefied natural gas (LNG). He has extensive knowledge of the Indian oil and gas business and is an expert in selling petroleum products, petrochemicals, LNG, and international trade.
Satish started serving as a member of the IOC board on September 1, 2016. During his tenure at IOC, Satish served as chairman of Indian Oil Adani Gas Pvt Ltd, a joint venture that IOC had established with the Adani Group for the purpose of selling CNG and piped cooking gas. Through such a venture, Adani Group quickly became the largest operator in the city gas market.
At the annual general meeting on June 30, Rosneft informed their shareholders that they had elected a new board of 11 members. However, Igor I Sechin will continue as the CEO and chairman of the company’s management board. As per reports, Sechin is a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The company informed the other members include, “Govind Kottis Satish, Managing Director, Value Prolific Consulting Services Pvt Ltd (ValPro)”.
In Russian oil and gas areas, Rosneft has joint ventures with the former company of GK Satish. Additionally, it sells crude oil to IOC and other Indian businesses. Recently, it has also begun transporting naphtha to Gujarat refineries.
This year in March, Rosneft signed a term agreement with IOC to increase oil supplies and substantially diversify India’s oil grades.
In the presence of India’s oil minister Hardeep Singh Puri, the agreement between the two firms was signed by Rosneft’s Chief Executive Officer Igor Sechin and IOC Chairman Shrikant Madhav Vaidya during the former’s recent visit to India.
“The parties also discussed ways of expanding integrated cooperation between Rosneft Oil Company and Indian companies in the entire value chain of the energy sector, including possibilities of making payments in national currencies,” said the Russian company in a statement.
During his trip, Sechin also met with officials from the Indian government and with the heads of some of the country’s largest oil and gas companies. “Particular attention was paid to the ongoing implementation of joint projects between Rosneft and its Indian partners, including Sakhalin-1, Taas-Yuryakh and Vankorneft,” the statement said.
The two parties also noted a significant increase in turnover between Russia and India. According to the latest statistics from the Ministry of Commerce and Industry of India, Russia has become one of India’s five largest trading partners for the first time in history – the volume of trade between the countries in 2022 reached 38.4 billion dollars.
“Thus, the goal set by the leaders of our countries to increase turnover to 30 billion dollars by 2025 has been achieved in advance,” said Sechin.
Rosneft has been actively developing the integrated format for cooperation with Indian partners along the whole processing chain, from extraction to refining and oil product sales.Indian companies (ONGC Videsh Ltd., Oil India Limited, IOC, and Bharat Petroresources) have been owners of 49.9 per cent of Rosneft’s subsidiary JSC Vankorneft since 2016. This company is located in Krasnoyarsk Territory and develops the Vankorskoye oil and gas condensate field, one of the biggest fields discovered and brought on stream over the last 25 years in Russia.
A consortium of Indian companies (Oil India Limited, IOC and Bharat Petroresources) also owns 29.9 per cent of Taas-Yuryakh Neftegazodobycha, which develops the Central Block and the Kurungsky license block of the Srednebotuobinskoye field which is among Rosneft’s largest assets in Eastern Siberia.
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