BV Rama Gopal has taken over as the Director (Refineries) of the Board of Indian Oil Corporation Ltd (Indian Oil) with effect from February 12, 2018.
Earlier, Gopal was the Executive Director (In-Charge) of the Company’s Panipat Refinery & Petrochemicals Complex, India’s largest integrated refinery-cum-petrochemicals complex, and the third largest of its kind in Asia, stated an Indian Oil press communiqué.
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The Indian Oil Group owns and operates 11 of India’s 23 refineries, with a combined refining capacity of 80.7 MMTPA.
Rama Gopal, has joined the Indian Oil Board at a time when the Company has charted an exciting growth trajectory for its Refineries Division, with mega projects of over Rs 70,000 crore under execution over the next three years.
The main projects are of the Company are upgradation of major units at various group refineries for roll out of BS-VI grade fuels in NCT by April 2018, NCR by April 2019 and all-India by April 2020, capacity expansion of Barauni Refinery (6 to 9 MMTPA), Gujarat Refinery (13.7 to 18 MMTPA) and Panipat Refinery (15 to 25 MMTPA).
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Gopal will also be spearheading the completion of major projects of Polypropylene Unit & Petcoke (Paradip Refinery), INDMAX (Bongaigaon Refinery), rolling out of Ethylene Glycol Project (Paradip Refinery) and Acrylics/Oxo Alcohol Project (Dumad, Gujarat), among others.
He graduated in Chemical Engineering from Osmania University, Hyderabad.
Rama Gopal, who did advanced management training from the ASCI, has over three decades of rich experience in the oil and gas sector and is among the very few professionals in the industry with deep knowledge of operating both refinery and petrochemical unit with an extensive product-line of aromatics and polymers, besides petroleum products.
Many new grades of polymers were added to Indian Oil’s products portfolio under his leadership, with important international OEMs tie-ups for supplies.
Rama Gopal joined Indian Oil in 1982 as a Graduate Engineer Trainee and since then he has worked at various refinery locations, including Haldia, Vadodara, Mathura and Panipat.
Gopal’s experience spans several specialised areas of the oil and gas sector like Operations, Technical Services, Production, Planning & Coordination and Project Implementation.
Known for his focus on innovative practices, under his sterling leadership, both Panipat Refinery and the Naphtha Cracker plant, established a record of best-ever physical and financial performance of naphtha throughput, distillate yield, specific energy consumption and polymer production.
Along with economic performance and robust eco-sustainability management, Rama Gopal is also a strong believer in the importance of social stewardship.
During his earlier tenure at Panipat, he inspired his team to create positive impact in the neighbouring communities through rural development. Known for his participative management style, he believes in building close-knit teams.
Gopal also served as the Director on the Board of ISRPL (Indian Synthetic Rubber Pvt Ltd), a joint venture company with Indian Oil, Marubeni (Japan) and Taiwan Synthetic Rubber Corporation (Taiwan) as partners.
The turnaround of the Company from a loss-making venture to earning profits since 2015-16 is credited to the various innovative strategies initiated during his tenure.
Having been associated with several prominent government bodies and industry associations, Rama Gopal has widely travelled across India and abroad and was part of several key national and international forums, the communiqué added.