Rabi Narayan Bastia

Summary

Rabi Narayan Bastia is an Indian geoscientist and the Global Head of Exploration at Lime Petroleum, Norway, known for his contributions in the hydrocarbon explorations at Krishna Godavari Basin (2002), at Mahanadi Basin (2003) and at Cauvery (2007).[1] A non-executive director of Asian Oilfield Services Limited and the President at OilMax Energy,[2] Bastia is a recipient of the Odisha Living Legend Award.[3] The Government of India awarded him the fourth highest civilian honour of the Padma Shri, in 2007, for his contributions to Science and Technology.[4]

Rabi Narayan Bastia
Born (1958-10-02) 2 October 1958 (age 65)
Odisha, India
OccupationGeoscientist
Known forKG-D6 Gas field in Krishna Godavari Basin
SpouseRashmi
Children2
AwardsPadma Shri
Odisha Living Legend Award
National Mineral Award
ONGC Young Executive Award
AEG Gold Medal
Infraline Service to Nation Award
Ruchi Bharat Gaurav Samman
INSA Young Scientist Award
IBC International Educator of the Year
Oceantex Leadership and Excellence Award

Biography edit

Bastia was born on 2 October 1958 in Odisha, India, and graduated in Science from Utkal University.[5] His master's degree came in Applied Geology from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur which was followed by a doctoral degree (PhD) in Structural Geology from the same institution. Later, he completed an advanced master's course (MS) in petroleum exploration at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, with a first rank.[5] His career started at the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) in 1980 and he worked there for 16 years till he joined Reliance Industries (RIL) in 1996 where he founded and headed the exploration and production (E&P) Division.[1] He led the RIL exploration team at Krishna Godavari Basin and discovered the KG-D6 field in 2002, reportedly the biggest Natural gas find worldwide in the year 2002.[6] He worked with RIL till 2012 during which time the team led by him was successful in discovering gas at Mahanadi basin of the Northeast coast in 2003 and at Cauvery basin in 2007.[1]

In 2012, he resigned from RIL, under controversial circumstances, reportedly due to the decline in the output from the KG-D6.[6][7] By that time, he had already been associated with Lime Petroleum, Norway for two years, as a director, where he is the Global Head of Exploration. He is the President of E&P business at OilMax Energy, a Pune-based project management consultants in the energy sector,[8] concurrently serving Asian Oilfield Services as a non-executive independent director and Hibiscus Petroleum Bernhad, Malaysia as a director,[9] resigning from the latter board in 2014.[10] He also sits in the director boards of Oil Field Instrumentation India Limited and Synergy Oil and Gas Consultancy Pvt Ltd.[2] In 2005, he was elected as the chairman of the International Quality and Productivity Centre (IQPC), the first Indian to hold the post.[5] He is a member of American Association of Petroleum Geologists and the Society of Exploration Geophysicists and Petroleum Engineers. He is also a member of the Society of Geoscientists and Allied Technologists, Indian Geological Congress and the Association of Petroleum Geologists of India.[2]

Bastia is the author of Geologic Settings and Petroleum Systems of India's East Coast Offshore Basins : Concepts and Applications, a text on exploration of hydrocarbons in Indian coast.[11] Besides, he has published over fifty articles in peer reviewed national and international journals and serves as a visiting professor at many universities. He has also mentored four students in their doctoral research and has delivered keynote addresses at several international conferences including the Petromin Deepwater Conference at Malaysia and the SEAPEX Conference at Singapore.[5]

Bastia is married to Rashmi and the couple has two sons.[5]

Awards and honours edit

Bastia was awarded the degree of Doctor of Science (DSc) by the Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad, his thesis validated by Alberta University and the University of Oklahoma.[1] This was the first instance a scientist in India receiving the honour for petroleum research.[9] In 1990, the Indian National Science Academy awarded him their Young Scientist Award.[1] While working at the Oil and Natural Gas Commission, he received three institutional awards between 1993 and 1995, including the Young Executive Award.[5] The Geological Society of India awarded him the National Mineral Award in 2003 and the Government of India followed it up, three years later, with civilian honour of the Padma Shri in 2007;[4] a year earlier, he had received the Gold Medal of the Association of Exploration Geophysicists.[5] The year 2007 brought him two more awards viz. Infraline Service to Nation Award and Ruchi Bharat Gaurav Samman of the Government of Odisha.[1] He was featured in the Who's Who in the World of the American Continental Research in its 2008 edition and the International Biographical Centre listed him among the top 100 educators of the world in 2009.[1] He is also a recipient of the Oceantex Leadership and Excellence Award (2010)[1] and the Odisha Living Legend Award (2011).[3]

See also edit

References edit

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h "Bloomberg profile". Bloomberg. 2015. Retrieved 26 December 2015.
  2. ^ a b c "4 Traders profile". 4 Traders. 2015. Retrieved 26 December 2015.
  3. ^ a b "Odisha Living Legend Award". Orissa Diary. 11 November 2011. Retrieved 26 December 2015. Archived 20 August 2014 at the Wayback Machine
  4. ^ a b "Padma Awards" (PDF). Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India. 2015. Retrieved 21 July 2015. Archived 15 October 2015 at the Wayback Machine
  5. ^ a b c d e f g "Brief Profile of Dr. Rabi Narayan Bastia". Press Box, UK. 26 March 2007. Retrieved 26 December 2015. Archived 17 January 2013 at the Wayback Machine
  6. ^ a b "Why And How Bastia Got Busted". Indian Oil and Gas. 2015. Retrieved 26 December 2015.
  7. ^ "Ravi Narayan Bastia, the man who discovered KG-D6 fields for RIL quits the company". Economic Times. 16 May 2012. Retrieved 26 December 2015.
  8. ^ "Core Team". Oilmax. 2015. Retrieved 26 December 2015. Archived 20 August 2015 at the Wayback Machine
  9. ^ a b "Board of Directors". Asian Oilfield Services. 2015. Retrieved 26 December 2015. Archived 27 December 2015 at the Wayback Machine
  10. ^ "HIBISCUS PETROLEUM BERHAD ANNOUNCES". Burs Market Place. 2014. Retrieved 26 December 2015.
  11. ^ Ravi Bastia (2007). Geologic Settings and Petroleum Systems of India's East Coast Offshore Basins : Concepts and Applications. Eastern Book Corporation. ISBN 978-8190176781. Archived 27 December 2015 at the Wayback Machine

Further reading edit

  • Ravi Bastia (2007). Geologic Settings and Petroleum Systems of India's East Coast Offshore Basins : Concepts and Applications. Eastern Book Corporation. ISBN 978-8190176781.