OREANDA-NEWS. Dr Anil Bhandari has taken over as Director (Exploration) of ONGC Videsh Limited, the overseas arm of ONGC, from March 1, 2014. Dr Bhandari will be responsible for managing overseas exploration assets, opportunity evaluation and spearheading the business development process for new acquisitions of both exploration and producing assets.

Dr Anil Bhandari obtained his M.Tech (Applied Geology) and PhD from Department of Geology Rajasthan University, Udaipur. He is an eminently proficient geologist, joined ONGC Ltd.in 1979 at Assam. He has 34 years of rich experience in the field of geosciences, management, and R&D institute and served in various capacities as Head Geoscience Group, Head Basin Research group, KDMIPE, Head Functional training Group of ONGC Academy and management of exploration activities in Cambay Basin, Assam Arakan Basin, Mumbai offshore and other Exploration projects of ONGC. He contributed significantly in field of high resolution Stratigraphy and delineation of Petroleum Systems in Indian Basins. Prior to joining the Board of OVL, he led the operation in Sudan as Executive Director, and Country Manager, ONGC Nile Ganga BV, Khartoum. He was responsible for total chain of operations from upstream, mid-stream and downstream.

Dr Bhandari's scholastic achievements include about 40 of well-regarded scientific publications (including books), in national and international journals.

Dr Bhandari has been a recipient of number of awards and recognitions. Among them is Young Executive Award by ONGC in 1988, followed by most prestigious National Mineral Award 2001 conferred on him by Government of India in recognition to the contributions in Geology and, Stratigraphy. Recently he has been awarded by Prof. S.N Bhalla Gold medal in 2009 by the Paleontological Society of India.