Prabh Das, Managing Director And Chief Executive Officer
Mr. Prabh Das has been involved with HMEL since its inception including in the formation of the joint venture. He formally joined HMEL in 2008 and has been instrumental in setting up of the Guru Gobind Singh Refinery project and its operations thereafter. He possesses vast and wide-ranging experience in administration and management, having served in the Indian Administrative Services for over twenty-five years. He is responsible for leading and managing HMEL and its subsidiaries as Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer.
Prior to joining HMEL, Mr. Das served as Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas from 2003 to March 2008 where he was in charge of the Refineries Division and was instrumental in implementing the Auto Fuel Policy, Strategic Storage and New Initiatives in Oil Diplomacy. He led the transformation of the domestic refining sector which included strengthening refining capacities, improving refining operations, safety aspects and introduction of new technologies.
During his tenure in the ministry, he was on the Board of Fortune 500 companies such as Indian Oil Corporation Ltd., HPCL, Mangalore Refineries and Petrochemicals Ltd., Chennai Petroleum Corporation Ltd. and Engineers India Ltd.
Mr. Das is a B. Tech (Hons.) from IIT, Kharagpur and completed his Master of Business Administration from Southern Cross University, Australia.
Harak C. Banthia, Chief Financial Officer
Mr. Banthia has been Chief Financial Officer of HMEL since April 2011. He has over three decades of extensive experience including sixteen years of international experience in mergers and acquisitions, strategy, finance, commercial and management of various companies.
He has been associated with various projects of Mr. L N Mittal in steel as well as in oil & gas since April 1995. Prior to this, he worked at Lovelock & Lewes (now PriceWaterhouseCoopers) for seven years in audits, computer assurance and special assignments.
Mr. Banthia is a rank holding Chartered Accountant with a Bachelor of Commerce (Honours) degree from St. Xavier's College, Kolkata.
A.S. Basu, Chief Operating Officer
As the Chief Operating Officer, Mr. Basu is overall responsible for the safe, reliable and optimised operations of HMEL’s Integrated Refinery-Petrochemical Complex. He brings with him over four decades of experience in the refining industry in operations, technical services, production planning, energy conservation and Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) functions. His achievements include identification of process improvements as well as implementation and commissioning of projects.
Prior to joining HMEL, Mr. Basu headed Chennai Petroleum Corporation, a group company of Indian Oil Corporation. He holds a degree in Chemical Engineering.
M. B. Gohil, Head Of Operations
Mr. Gohil is responsible for managing the operations of the Integrated Refinery-Petrochemical Complex ‘Guru Gobind Singh Refinery’ at Bathinda.
A graduate in Chemical Engineering from IIT Bombay, Mr. Gohil started his career with GAIL (India) Limited in 1986. During his career spanning over three decades with GAIL, Mr. Gohil held various positions in the Gas Processing Units, Petrochemical Complex and Corporate Functions of GAIL. He was associated with GAIL's Petrochemical and Gas Processing Projects from concept to commissioning.
Prior to joining HMEL, Mr Gohil was Executive Director (Petrochemicals) and was heading GAIL's Petrochemical Complex at Pata, Uttar Pradesh.
Ashok Kumar, Vice President, Human Leadership
Mr. Kumar joined HMEL in 2008 and has been instrumental in building the organisation's human resources through talent recruitment, organisation structure design, HR policy formulation, performance management, industrial relations, organisation culture development and CSR activities since inception. Aligning the mind-set of employees drawn from a large number of companies within a short span of time and building a strong team to achieve organisational goals has been one of his key strengths. Optimisation of manpower, development of leaders across levels through Individual Development Plans (IDPs) and making HMEL a 'Great Place to Work' by improving people management skills across levels and streamlining various HR systems so as to have engaged and motivated employees have been his key focus areas.
His unique professional contribution, during a career spanning over three decades, has been the establishment of complete HR and performance management systems and performance driven cultures in various newly established companies in India. He has handled industrial relations and human resource management in large organisations with diverse cultures. He has also presented papers on a number of topics at global HR conferences in India and abroad.
Mr. Kumar started his career with the National Hydroelectric Power Corporation Ltd. in 1981 and went on to work with Samtel, and LG Electronics as Senior General Manager, HR, before joining HMEL in 2008.
He is a Post Graduate in Industrial Relations and Personnel Management.
Sanjeev Malhotra, Vice President, Treasury
Mr. Malhotra handles HMEL's strategic portfolio in areas related to project finance, capital markets and risk management. He brings with him close to three decades of rich experience in several leadership positions spanning the entire gamut of Treasury and Finance. He was part of the core strategic group during HMEL JV formation and successfully delivered the financial closure of GGSR, the SPM, Crude Oil Terminal (COT) and the 1,017 kilometre cross-country pipeline from Mundra to Bathinda.
Prior to joining HMEL, he was associated with HPCL as Zonal Finance Head (South Zone and North Zone) providing strategic direction for growth. Earlier, he served as General Manager, Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd. during the company's expansion phase.
He is a Chartered Accountant and has attended various executive programs in Finance.
Manu Sehgal, Vice President, Strategy & Feedstock Supply Group
Mr. Sehgal's key responsibilities include strategy, crude and feed stock procurement, planning, naphtha exports, shipping and associated risk management activities. He was responsible for setting up the Strategy and Feed Stock Supply Group at HMEL to coincide with refinery operations.
Prior to joining HMEL in 2008, he was Additional Director at the Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell of the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, deputed from HPCL. As part of two Expert Technical Groups, he has played a significant role in the deregulation of the oil Industry and establishment of post-deregulation mechanisms.
At HPCL, he dealt with the transition of pricing systems from APM to free markets and set up systems covering pricing of all products. During his earlier tenure in the Oil Coordination Committee, he contributed to fixing costs and margins for the refinery sector, for two consecutive pricing cycles of 1990-93 and 1993-96.
Mr. Sehgal is an Honours Graduate in Accounts and Commerce from Panjab University, a Chartered Accountant and Chartered Financial Analyst. He has completed a rigorous Senior Management level 3TP Management Programme from IIM, Ahmedabad, in 2007.
Pawan Kumar Agarwal, Vice President, Pipelines
Mr. Agarwal is directly responsible for ensuring the end-to-end streamlined operation of the SPM at Mundra and the entire stretch of the 1,017 km Mundra-Bathinda pipeline.
He has over three decades of extensive experience in the oil industry, in operations, maintenance, technical services and projects. Prior to joining HMEL, he worked with IOCL where he was instrumental in de-bottlenecking and optimising throughput of crude and product pipelines, upgrading product pipeline operations, and updating mainline and cathodic protection maintenance. He oversaw the complete construction of the main pumping stations of the Kandla-Bathinda Pipeline and Viramgam-Chaksu pipeline. He also started and commissioned the Bijwasan-Panipat Pipeline project and integrated offshore, and the SPM installation project at Paradip. He has also provided pipeline operation training to Oil India Limited and assisted in the preparation of operation and maintenance manuals to Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company, Sudan.
Mr. Agarwal is a B.Tech. (Hons.) in Electrical Engineering from Pant Nagar University and has an M.Tech degree in Management and Systems from IIT, Delhi.
Rajnish Mehta, Vice President-Marketing
Mr. Mehta has the overall responsibility for marketing HMEL’s liquid products through HPCL and polymer, chemical and solid product portfolio. He has over three decades of experience in various leadership positions in the petroleum marketing sector in India.
He served as the Executive Director of Corporate Strategy, Planning, and Business Development at Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL), playing a pivotal role in shaping HPCL's strategic direction, particularly in Energy Transition, Low Carbon Future and Advanced Fuels. He demonstrated his prowess by overseeing major business units such as Industrial & Consumer Sales, Lubricant business, and Aviation business, along with lubricants Research & Development and Digital Transformation initiatives.
Mr. Rajnish Mehta is an engineering graduate from NIT, Kurukshetra and has completed Advanced Management programmes from Cambridge and ASCI.
Mr. Anshu Sharma is responsible for managing the operations and maintenance of all Petrochemical units. He has over three decades of rich experience in Oil and Gas, Refining and Petrochemical units covering the various areas linked with the establishment of a greenfield refinery and petrochemical complex, process technology identification, process planning and engineering, pre-commissioning and commissioning, start-up and smooth operation of refinery and petrochemical units including troubleshooting and operations management of large-scale projects.
Mr. Sharma has been with HMEL since its inception in 2007 and before that with Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL). He was part of the team responsible for the establishment of 9 MMTPA grassroots refinery (subsequently expanded to 11.3 MMTPA) and 1.2 MMTPA Petrochemical Complex encompassing a Dual Feed Cracker and downstream polymer units and associated facilities at Bathinda.
During his eighteen-year tenure at HPCL, he worked in various departments including Operations at Mumbai Refinery, Technical Services, Coordination Office and Punjab Refinery Project division which was responsible for setting up the Guru Gobind Singh Refinery.
He has completed his Bachelor’s in Chemical Engineering (with Honors) from Panjab University, Chandigarh and PG Diploma in Management. He has done certifications in ‘Execution of Organization Strategy Program’ from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania and an Executive Leadership Program from IIM, Ahmedabad.
Mr. Arun Bhardwaj is responsible for the Operational Excellence of the integrated refinery and petrochemical complex to drive high performance across various operational metrics, including reliability, asset integrity, engineering, technical training, and ensuring the highest safety standards and environmental stewardship.
He is an accomplished and dynamic professional with over three decades of extensive experience in the petroleum refinery sector with career starting from HPCL. He has been a part of HMEL since its inception and played a pivotal role in corporate strategy development, starting with the development of configuration for the 9 MMTPA grassroots refinery, low-cost expansion to 11.25 MMTPA leading to notable growth and diversification in world scale multi feed petrochemical complex of HMEL. He was responsible for the design of major process units at the Refinery and Petchem complex. He played a key role in the implementation of Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) from the grassroots level. He has proven experience in technical services, operations, strategic planning, process engineering, crude procurement & production planning and project development and management.
Mr. Bhardwaj is a Chemical Engineer with PG Diploma in Management. He is a certified Energy Auditor and earned certification in ‘Creating and Implementing Strategy for Competitive Advantage’ from Wharton University and the Executive Leaders Programme from IIM, Ahmedabad.
Mr. Prabhakararao Kakumani is a qualified Chartered Accountant and Company Secretary, currently in charge of the Contracts and Procurement function. Mr. Prabhakararao is a seasoned professional with over three decades of extensive experience working in the oil industry in various roles ranging from finance, audit, process consulting etc. He brings a wealth of expertise garnered through diverse roles in finance, audit, ERP, finance automation and management consulting from various multinational oil companies.
He has the overall responsibility of managing strategic procurement, supply chain management and warehousing management to drive innovative solutions to bring operational efficiency and cost-effectiveness at HMEL.
Vivek Aggarwal, Vice President, Finance
Mr. Vivek Aggarwal commands the role of financial controller in HMEL and is responsible for Financial reporting, budgeting, MIS, legal and accounts payable.
He has close to three decades of rich experience in financial controls, risk management and internal audits. Prior to joining HMEL, Mr. Vivek Aggarwal worked with GE Capital, Ernst & Young and Tata Teleservices. In the early stages of his career, Mr. Aggarwal was among the pioneers in managing large-scale internal control projects for global companies from India. He also helped companies set up their risk management frameworks.
Mr. Vivek Aggarwal is a Chartered Accountant with a Bachelor of Commerce (Honours) Degree from Hansraj College, Delhi.
Mr. Mittal is directly responsible for managing the entire operations and maintenance of all refinery units including Refinery Turnaround Event. He has more than 26 years of experience in various roles and profiles in the refinery sector that span operations, technical service, process optimization, energy conservation and special projects.
At HMEL, he spearheaded several successful margin improvement projects including the expansion of Polypropylene, Vacuum Distillation and Crude Units and played a key role in the successful commissioning and stabilization of the Refinery.
He has authored numerous technical articles, presented papers at various National and International Conferences and is a certified energy auditor.
He is a state topper and gold medallist in Chemical Engineering specializing in Polymers and a member of the core team for the development of digital strategy and digital vision for HMEL.
Atul Saxena, Vice President, Technical Services
Mr. Atul Saxena is responsible for process engineering, monitoring, optimization and day-to-day troubleshooting of Refinery and Petrochemical process units. His role includes implementation and maintenance of advanced process controls, energy conservation and GRM improvement projects, in addition to heading product quality control.
He has over three decades of work experience in the Indian and Canadian oil and gas industry. His areas of expertise include refinery technical services, process simulation, energy conservation, project execution and operations support. At HMEL, he was instrumental in the successful implementation of the BS-VI project, maximizing the production of motor spirit and spearheading digitalization projects in Delayed Coker and Captive Power Plant.
He has completed his Bachelor’s in Chemical Engineering in First Class with Honours from NIT, Rourkela and Masters in Chemical Engineering from the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada.
Mr. V. Viswanathan leads HMEL’s new and ongoing project execution. He has more than three decades of experience in the execution of large-scale refinery and petrochemical projects in India and abroad.
He played a key role in setting up of one of the largest Dual Feed Cracker Units in the world, at GGSR, Bathinda. Before joining HMEL, he had worked in Consultancy and EPC organisations, viz. Engineers India Limited, Samsung Engineering, Foster Wheeler and KBR, India, leading large-scale and complex projects.
He graduated in Mechanical Engineering from Annamalai University and holds a Post Graduate Diploma in Operations Management.
Hector Salazar, Vice President-Safety
Mr. Hector Salazar accomplished close to four decades of career leading and managing challenging mega projects and operations in the Safety, Health and Environmental around the world in the Energy, Oil, Gas and Petrochemical sectors for EPC; EPCM; Commissioning and Operations. Mr. Salazar has developed his career from field to corporate helping organizations to execute challenging projects with injury free approach reducing TRIR from 3.4 to 0.45 in periods of 2-3 years performance with a rate of fatality in a case per every 140-million-man hour executed. He has previously worked in Canada, South America, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Singapore.
Mr. Salazar was part of HMEL during the Petrochemical Project construction phase and was instrumental in implementing health and safety systems till the mechanical completion of the project before moving to his previous employer Dragados, Canada. Now he is overall responsible for leading the Health & Safety function at HMEL and the development of a world-class safety culture in line with global best practices.
His performance style is based upon strong inspiring leadership; management system implementation and practical performance monitoring, which drive the organization to focus resources and actions in areas with high potential and probabilities of undesired events.
Mr. Salazar is well-recognized in the international community for health and safety. The World Safety Organization designated him as a ‘Person of The Year 2021’.
Sidhartha Tyagi, Company Secretary
Mr. Tyagi assists the Board and senior management in managing the corporate affairs of the company. As the Company Secretary, he has been responsible for aligning various management functions with company policies, ensuring compliance to all applicable laws and acting as a channel of communication between all key stakeholders. He has had a wide exposure to secretarial and regulatory assignments, corporate law matters, corporate governance, streamlining finance and treasury functions, etc.
Mr. Tyagi has been associated with GGSR since its inception. He was instrumental in the execution of the Joint Venture (JV) between HPCL and Mittal Energy Investment Pte Ltd., and creation of HMEL.
He is an Associate Member of the Institute of Company Secretaries of India and holds a diploma in tax laws with distinction from the Indian Law Institute.
