DISTINGUISHED ALUMNUS AWARDEE | 2026
Dr. Ranjit Rath is currently the Chairman and Managing Director of Oil India Limited (OIL), India’s oldest national E&P company and a Maharatna CPSE, and also serves as Chairman of Numaligarh Refinery Limited (NRL), a Navratna CPSE.
After his M.Sc. from IIT Bombay, he obtained a Ph.D. in Geoscience from Utkal University, Bhubaneswar, completed an Executive Management programme in International Business at IIFT, New Delhi, and an MDP at IIM Ahmedabad on Risk and Uncertainties in Project Management.
Dr. Rath is a career technocrat with strong commercial and administrative acumen, bringing over 30 years of experience across diverse roles spanning exploration geosciences, upstream asset management, strategy formulation, and business development, as well as the application of geosciences and exploration geology across minerals and mineral fuels.
Dr. Rath began his professional career at EIL, where he rose to the position of General Manager – Corporate Strategy and Business Development. He subsequently assumed charge as Chairman and Managing Director of MECL, while also shouldering additional responsibilities as Managing Director of BGML and CEO of KABIL. He later served as Director General of the Geological Survey of India, collaborating with several international geological survey organisations to drive the adoption of advanced technological interventions and build a future-ready mineral exploration ecosystem.
He is currently spearheading the next phase of transformative growth at OIL and its subsidiary, NRL, with planned investments of around $10 billion in the upstream segment and $5 billion across the midstream and downstream hydrocarbon value chain over the next five years.
Under his leadership, OIL secured Maharatna status from the Government of India, the highest recognition conferred on a Central Public Sector Enterprise (CPSE), while NRL was upgraded from a Schedule B to a Schedule A CPSE and accorded Navratna status.
During this period, OIL achieved several landmark milestones, including its highest-ever cumulative oil and gas production and record gas output in FY 2024–25 since inception. The company strengthened its offshore exploration capabilities through deep- and ultra-deep-water initiatives, entered into a Technology Service Agreement with TotalEnergies, established a new hydrocarbon presence and mapped petroleum systems in the North Bank of the Assam Shelf and the Andaman Shallow Water Basin, secured multiple discoveries enabling near-field monetisation, improved ESG ratings significantly, and strategically diversified into the critical minerals sector.
As Chairman of NRL, he has led the construction and commissioning of the world’s first 2G bioethanol plant at Numaligarh using bamboo as feedstock. He is also driving NRL’s next phase of growth, including the expansion of crude oil refining capacity from 3 MMTPA to 9 MMTPA, the development of a ~1,640 km cross-country crude oil pipeline, and the initiation of a 360 KTPA polypropylene petrochemical project.
Earlier, he played an active role in the creation of India’s Strategic Petroleum Reserves (SPR), a first-of-its-kind Government of India initiative entailing underground rock caverns for the strategic storage of crude oil to strengthen energy security. He received the National Geoscience Award (2016) from the Honourable President of India for this accomplishment. He is also a recipient of the Distinguished Alumnus Award (DAA) from IIT Kharagpur (2022).
Interests & Hobbies: I am an avid traveller, reader, and explorationist at heart.
A Personal Note: I am a Geoscience Enthusiast.
