The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet has approved the appointment of Sunil Kumar, Executive Director of the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, as the next Chairman of ONGC for a combined tenure of three years from 7 December 2026. Sunil Kumar will succeed Arun Kumar Singh, whose term ends on 6 December 2026. The decision makes Sunil Kumar the first executive to rise directly from the rank of Executive Director to the top post of India’s largest oil and gas producer.
Who Is the New ONGC Chairman?
Sunil Kumar is an Executive Director of the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation who will take charge as Chairman of ONGC on or after 7 December 2026 for three years. The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet approved his name after a Petroleum Ministry committee recommended him.
The Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas conveyed the approval through its letter dated 22 October 2026. ONGC informed the stock exchanges about the decision on 23 October 2026 under the disclosure rules for listed companies. The order states that Sunil Kumar will assume charge on or after 7 December 2026 and continue till his superannuation on 31 December 2028 and thereafter on contract, for a combined period of three years, or until further orders, whichever is earlier.
The appointment is historic inside the company. ONGC Chairmen have usually been chosen from among board level directors or from outside the company. Sunil Kumar, aged 58, is the first officer to move directly from the rank of Executive Director, which is one level below the board, to the post of Chairman, which is also referred to as Chairman and Managing Director (CMD) in public sector companies.
What Is ONGC?
ONGC stands for Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited. It is a Central Public Sector Enterprise owned by the Government of India and the largest crude oil and natural gas explorer and producer in India, accounting for about 71 per cent of domestic oil output.
Yes, ONGC is a government company. The Government of India holds about 58.89 per cent of its shares (as of October 2026). Its shares are listed on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) and the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), where its code is 500312, and it is part of the Nifty 50 index. This mix of government ownership and stock market listing is common for large public sector companies. It lets the public buy shares while control stays with the government.
ONGC began as the Oil and Natural Gas Directorate in 1955 under the Geological Survey of India. The Directorate became the Oil and Natural Gas Commission on 14 August 1956. In 1994, the Commission was converted into a corporation, creating the present company. The government recognised ONGC as a Navratna company in 1997 and conferred Maharatna status in November 2010. Maharatna is the highest category for Central public sector companies and gives the board greater freedom to approve investments and form joint ventures.
The scale of ONGC is large. The company employs nearly 24,000 people and produces oil and gas from onshore fields and offshore fields, which means fields located on land and under the sea. Its portfolio covers ultra deep water, deep water, shallow water and onshore blocks. Key subsidiaries and group companies include ONGC Videsh Limited (OVL), the overseas arm for exploration outside India, Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Limited (MRPL), Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL), ONGC Petro Additions Limited (OPaL) and ONGC Green Limited for clean energy.
ONGC Comes Under Which Ministry?
ONGC works under the administrative control of the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas. This Ministry frames policy for exploration, production, refining, marketing and pricing of oil and gas in India and guides public sector oil companies on national energy goals.
The company has its registered office at Deendayal Urja Bhawan, 5A-5B Nelson Mandela Road, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi. ONGC also has a very large work centre in Dehradun, Uttarakhand, which houses research, training and geoscience institutes. This is why many searches link ONGC headquarters to Dehradun. For official purposes, the company is headquartered in New Delhi and reports to the Petroleum Ministry.
ONGC Videsh Limited, which is often asked about along with the parent company, is the wholly owned overseas arm of ONGC. ONGC Videsh was first incorporated as Hydrocarbons India Private Limited on 5 March 1965 and was renamed ONGC Videsh on 15 June 1989. The company holds participating interests in 32 oil and gas assets in 15 countries, including Russia, Mozambique, Brazil, Vietnam, Colombia and the UAE. It produced 10.278 million tonnes of oil equivalent in 2024-25 and holds 2P reserves of 474.14 million tonnes of oil equivalent as on 1 April 2025. 2P reserves mean proved plus probable reserves, which is an estimate of oil and gas that can be recovered with reasonable certainty.
How Was the ONGC Chairman Selected?
The ONGC Chairman was selected through a government led process that ended with approval from the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC). The ACC is the high level committee that approves appointments to top posts in the central government and public sector companies. The ACC is chaired by the Prime Minister and includes the Minister of Home Affairs as member. The Establishment Officer’s Division of the Department of Personnel and Training acts as its secretariat.
For the ONGC top post, the Petroleum Ministry formed a Search-cum-Selection Committee. Such a committee screens eligible candidates from inside and outside the company, holds interviews and sends a recommendation to the government. In the case of Sunil Kumar, the committee held two rounds of interviews and considered about 19 candidates before recommending his name. The Ministry then moved the proposal to the ACC, which issued its approval.
The tenure structure is specific and important for examinations. The table below summarises the approved terms.
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Approving authority | Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC) |
| Recommending body | Search-cum-Selection Committee of the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas |
| Effective date | On or after 7 December 2026, on assumption of charge |
| Service till retirement age | Till 31 December 2028 (date of superannuation) |
| Further period | Thereafter on contract basis |
| Total combined tenure | Three years, or until further orders, whichever is earlier |
| Predecessor | Arun Kumar Singh, term till 6 December 2026 |
This model of service till retirement age plus a contract period to complete the approved tenure has been used earlier for ONGC as well. It allows continuity at the top even when the selected officer is close to the retirement age of 60 years for board level officers in public sector companies.
Who Is Sunil Kumar?
Sunil Kumar is a petroleum engineer with more than three decades of experience in oil and gas operations. He graduated in petroleum engineering from the Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad, which is now known as IIT (ISM) Dhanbad. He later completed a postgraduate diploma in business management with specialisation in marketing and finance from the Management Development Institute (MDI), Gurugram, and also holds a diploma in computer applications.
He joined ONGC in 1991 as an Assistant Executive Engineer (Production) in the Sivasagar and Nazira region of Assam. His early work covered production and workover operations, which involve maintaining and repairing oil wells to keep them flowing. He later served in well services in the western offshore region, handling well engineering at the Mumbai High fields. Mumbai High is India’s largest offshore oilfield, located in the Arabian Sea off the Mumbai coast, and it supplies a large share of domestic production.
Over the years, Sunil Kumar worked in Mumbai, Delhi, Hazira in Gujarat and Kakinada in Andhra Pradesh. He contributed to ONGC’s shift to an asset based working system, where each major field or group of fields is managed as a separate asset with its own manager and targets. He became Executive Director in January 2025 and took charge as Asset Manager of the Mehsana Asset in Gujarat on 8 January 2025. Mehsana is ONGC’s largest onshore producing asset. On 24 January 2025, he was also nominated as ONGC’s nominee director on the board of ONGC TERI Biotech Limited (OTBL), a joint venture for biotech solutions for oilfield and environmental uses.
His strongest record is in offshore project execution. He was involved in planning and execution of the Vasistha and S1 deep water project on the east coast, which was ONGC’s first deep water gas development. Deep water means sea depth of more than 500 metres, where laying pipelines and completing wells needs special ships and remote systems. In Mumbai, he led planning and coordination for India’s largest shallow water subsea project, which covered drilling, completion and production from 11 subsea wells. Subsea wells are wells completed on the sea floor and connected by pipelines to a processing platform.
As project manager for the KG-DWN-98/2 Cluster II development in the Krishna-Godavari basin off Kakinada, he oversaw work that achieved production of about 35,000 barrels of oil per day and 1.4 million standard cubic metres of gas per day. The Krishna-Godavari basin, which stretches across Andhra Pradesh and offshore Bay of Bengal, is one of India’s most promising areas for deep water oil and gas.
What Defined the Tenure of Arun Kumar Singh?
Arun Kumar Singh took charge as Chairman of ONGC on 7 December 2022 for an initial term of three years. He is a mechanical engineer from the National Institute of Technology, Patna, and had earlier served as Chairman and Managing Director of Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL). BPCL is a Maharatna public sector refiner and fuel marketer. He had retired from BPCL in October 2022 and was brought back to lead ONGC. In December 2025, the government gave him a one year re-employment on contract, which extended his ONGC term till 6 December 2026.
His period at the top focused on steady profits, higher dividends and steps to slow the natural fall in output from ageing fields. Old fields lose pressure over time, so companies must inject water or gas and use enhanced recovery methods to keep production stable. A major policy support came in 2023, when the government revised domestic gas pricing. The new system set a floor price for gas from nomination fields and linked prices to crude oil. Nomination fields are older fields given to ONGC and Oil India on nomination basis without bidding. The government also allowed ONGC to charge up to 12 per cent of crude prices for gas from new wells. These changes improved project returns and helped investment decisions.
Two business moves stood out. ONGC brought in BP as a technical service provider to raise output from Mumbai High and other western offshore assets. The results of this partnership will be watched closely during the next tenure. ONGC also restructured its capital heavy petrochemicals business, including OPaL at Dahej in Gujarat, to reduce losses. Other plans, such as entry into international oil trading and expansion of gas marketing, are still being developed.
His tenure also saw better relations with Reliance Industries. ONGC joined Reliance and BP for a joint exploration bid. This was notable because ONGC had moved court against Reliance in 2014 over alleged extraction of gas from an adjoining block in the Krishna-Godavari basin. The joint bid signalled a shift from dispute to partnership in exploration.
Why the ONGC Leadership Change Matters
The ONGC Chairman leads the company that anchors India’s energy security. India imports more than 85 per cent of its crude oil needs, so any rise in domestic output directly cuts the import bill and supports the rupee. ONGC contributes about 71 per cent of domestic crude oil production. A stable leadership is therefore linked to drilling targets, timely completion of offshore projects and control over costs.
The change also matters for investment and jobs in the oil value chain. ONGC’s spending flows to drilling contractors, seismic survey firms, pipe makers and engineering companies. Its group refineries, including HPCL and MRPL, depend on crude supply planning. Its overseas arm, ONGC Videsh, operates in a difficult global market shaped by conflicts, sanctions and shifting trade routes. The new Chairman will need to balance domestic production, overseas risk and the push toward gas and green energy through ONGC Green Limited.
For governance, the appointment shows a preference for an insider with project delivery experience. The selection through a Search-cum-Selection Committee, followed by ACC approval, follows the standard route for top posts in Maharatna companies. The first time elevation of an Executive Director signals that hands on offshore and onshore execution was given high weight.
Key Takeaways
- The ACC approved Sunil Kumar, Executive Director of ONGC, as Chairman of ONGC for a combined tenure of three years from 7 December 2026.
- Sunil Kumar is the first Executive Director to be elevated directly as ONGC Chairman and will succeed Arun Kumar Singh, whose term ends on 6 December 2026.
- ONGC stands for Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited, a Maharatna Central public sector company under the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, founded as a Commission on 14 August 1956.
- Sunil Kumar joined ONGC in 1991, is a petroleum engineering graduate of IIT (ISM) Dhanbad, and led the KG-DWN-98/2 Cluster II and 11 well shallow water subsea projects.
- ONGC Videsh Limited, set up on 5 March 1965, is the overseas arm of ONGC with interests in 32 assets across 15 countries.
