Rabi Narayan Bastia | |
|---|---|
| Born | (1958-10-02)2 October 1958 (age 67) Odisha, India |
| Occupation | Geoscientist |
| Known for | KG-D6 Gas field inKrishna Godavari Basin |
| Spouse | Rashmi |
| Children | 2 |
| Awards | Padma 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 |
Rabi Narayan Bastia is an Indiangeoscientist and the Global Head of Exploration at Lime Petroleum, Norway, known for his contributions in thehydrocarbon explorations atKrishna Godavari Basin (2002), atMahanadi Basin (2003) and atCauvery (2007).[1] A non-executive director of Asian Oilfield Services Limited and the President at OilMax Energy,[2] Bastia is a recipient of theOdisha Living Legend Award.[3] The Government of India awarded him the fourth highest civilian honour of thePadma Shri, in 2007, for his contributions to Science and Technology.[4]
Bastia was born on 2 October 1958 inOdisha, India, and graduated in Science fromUtkal University.[5] His master's degree came in Applied Geology from theIndian 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 theNorwegian University of Science and Technology, with a first rank.[5] His career started at theOil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) in 1980 and he worked there for 16 years till he joinedReliance Industries (RIL) in 1996 where he founded and headed theexploration and production (E&P) Division.[1] He led the RIL exploration team atKrishna 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 atMahanadi basin of the Northeast coast in 2003 and atCauvery 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 theInternational Quality and Productivity Centre (IQPC), the first Indian to hold the post.[5] He is a member ofAmerican 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 ofGeologic 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 thePetromin Deepwater Conference at Malaysia and theSEAPEX Conference at Singapore.[5]
Bastia is married to Rashmi and the couple has two sons.[5]
Bastia was awarded the degree of Doctor of Science (DSc) by theIndian School of Mines, Dhanbad, his thesis validated byAlberta University and theUniversity of Oklahoma.[1] This was the first instance a scientist in India receiving the honour for petroleum research.[9] In 1990, theIndian National Science Academy awarded him their Young Scientist Award.[1] While working at theOil and Natural Gas Commission, he received three institutional awards between 1993 and 1995, including the Young Executive Award.[5] TheGeological 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 thePadma Shri in 2007;[4] a year earlier, he had received the Gold Medal of theAssociation of Exploration Geophysicists.[5] The year 2007 brought him two more awards viz.Infraline Service to Nation Award andRuchi Bharat Gaurav Samman of theGovernment of Odisha.[1] He was featured in theWho's Who in the World of the American Continental Research in its 2008 edition and theInternational 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]
