I had been to the Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) with one of my colleagues (who happens to be an Indian) today in houston. I met k to the a to the r to the t to the eeeiiiicccchhhh to the i to the k there. It is more like the career fair but there were no students to hand out resumes to the company officials. Instead, it was a conglomeration of oil companies, big and small, and from all over the world (America ofcourse, Germany, UK!, INDIA! etc) aimed at sharing knowledge in oil industry. As I am new to this industry, I decided not to ask too many questions but just watch. As a consequence, the whole afternoon affair turned out to be slightly boring until we realised that ONGC and Reliance had put up a stall each. Expectedly, we reached ONGC first to talk to someone (just gen talk, anything but technical. I know that if any of the company official sees an Indian, he/she will be more than interested to spend some time with him). The stall was well 'decorated', its plan - as we learned later - conceived in India and designed in this country. There were two american women (girls, to be precise) who were dressed in semi-traditional Indian attire. It added to the beauty of the lasses! We (karthik and myself) wanted to talk to someone there and asked for the person incharge. A lady, her name Narayani something - HR manager, came out to talk and there started our discussion for about 20 minutes. We were curious to know the selection process of experienced candidates into ONGC, just to get an idea. In the process, we got a glimpse of oil industry in India (from what she says, India is really shining!). She was explaining how nationalistic some employees were and the company itself is. Finding, from our names, that we are from Tamilnadu (is rocket science needed?!) she asked "Do you miss Thayir Shaadham?!". "Ofcourse, we do" was our reply in unison. However, I stopped short of telling her it is my staple diet( along with Tom and Jerry cartoon) for dinner. She said she is a keralite who never stayed in kerala, her husband a punjabi serving the army, one of her daughters in Pune and her son in the same place etc etc. She invited us for a dinner cocktail tomorrow evening at 5.30 at Grand Plaza. At first, we were enthued to go as we could get to meet lots of Indians and ONGC officials. Our enthu went with the wind, when we realised how heavy the traffic in I-45 was/would be. Though she did not have an invite, she said she would remember our faces and let us in if we wished to go. That was a nice gesture from her. We exchanged business cards and left. Next was ONGC's competitor - Reliance. Our idea was to 'chat' with them for some time about the selection process again and chatting is what we had (for another 20 minutes). First, we talked to an engineer and later to an HR manager. He too portrayed India as shining unfurling some veiled satirical remarks on ONGC, by the way.
Lets come to some informative and serious part of the blog. All this chatting apart (which we did just not to get bored), we realised how well oil industry and Indian industry in general is performing. There are two huuuuuuge matured oil wells that have been discovered (one along the east coast in Kakinada and the other at the opposite corner, Gujarat). They say that many multinational oil majors including Shell lost hope of finding any well in India which ONGC and Reliance successfully unearthed. With majority of the focus on wells in America, Middle east and Europe there are lots of untapped wells in India which will grab attention of the world as time passes by. Afterall, everything (including you and me) has to go through a cycle. Well, these two major oil wells in kakinada and gujarat are to be connected by steel pipes (an approx distance of 1400km) which would cost some billion dollars. I do not remember the exact figure. The project is supposedly one of the biggest in the world, undertaken by Reliance. Once this is completed, the wells will be the biggest in terms of the barrels produced which is directly proportional to the flow rate. Understanding, the potential and opportunity that India provides Shell is already in talks with Reliance to set up an offshore development center in....? No prizes for guesses. Yes, it is the same boring city, Bangalore. Now, I am itching to take a swipe at this place. But I shall reserve a separate blog for that. Anyways, coming back to the original topic of discussion, both these companies feel that they need more mech engineers, drilling engineers, geophysicsts and geologists. They say we need to get back to India gaining as much experience as we can, here. How much ever we say that this country rewards deserving people with recognition, there will be a point in the corporate ladder in any company where racial discrimination will play its part. I agree with this completely and I do not care about what others think on this issue. Moreover, India's is the booming economy with a GDP rise of 8% approx. It makes more sense to be a part of that economy. As I had stated in one of my previous blogs, I wish I get an opportune time to get back to India. We attended the exhibition with an intention of acquiring some knowledge on american oil industry. Our purpose of industrial espionage on Baker Hughes and Halliburton was well served too! Ironically, we came out better equipped with an understanding of the Indian oil scenario.
Adios.
