Chief Operating Officer — Gas And LNG Business

The mandate

A listed gas and LNG business has outgrown governance designed for fewer assets and simpler contracts. Terminals, pipelines, storage, scheduling, customers and partners use overlapping forums, slowing decisions and obscuring accountability during commodity-cycle repositioning. The board seeks a COO who can create one operating system while preserving technical authority and contract-specific service.

The perimeter covers approximately ₹45,700 crore and 1,600 employees and material partners. Accountability includes operations, maintenance, integrity interfaces, logistics, scheduling, service, contractors, resilience, operating technology and leadership. Commercial teams own contracts and technical authorities retain independence. The COO owns physical performance, cross-asset decisions and operational capacity behind market commitments.

Complexity appears at interfaces. A terminal restriction changes pipeline allocation, storage, customer nominations and procurement. Multiple committees may discuss it while no leader owns the combined response. The COO must reduce forums and clarify decision rights.

Why this seat is open

The incumbent is leaving through an accelerated but professional transition. Interim leaders protect daily service, but repositioning requires permanent authority within six to eight weeks. No concealed incident or conduct finding prompted departure.

What you will own

• Establish one operating model across assets and partners.
• Define capacity, outage and customer-priority decisions.
• Improve reliability, maintenance and integrity execution.
• Connect physical operations with commodity scenarios.
• Build resilience and contractor recovery capability.
• Develop asset leaders and successors.

Decision governance will specify owners for nominations, capacity, maintenance, inventory, operating restrictions and incidents. Forums will exist only where participants make or assure a decision. Escalation will have evidence, time and final authority. Technical acceptance cannot be overridden through committee consensus.

Performance will reconcile throughput, availability, loss, energy, maintenance, integrity, service and cost. Asset averages will not conceal recurring constraints. The COO will distinguish operating cause from commercial choice and ensure each variance reaches an accountable owner.

Maintenance will use consequence, backlog health, planning and field verification. Emergency work and schedule break-ins remain visible. Integrity findings will have temporary controls, expiry and funded correction. Contractor performance will include competence, repeat defects, continuity and recovery.

Commodity scenarios will translate into physical action. Demand shifts, cargo delay, price spreads, weather and customer credit may alter utilisation and routing. The COO will define operating limits and options before commercial teams commit flexibility the network cannot deliver.

Resilience plans will test utilities, cyber, marine, pipeline, supplier and workforce disruption. Alternative routes and mutual aid must be usable. Exercises will change maintenance, inventory, contracts or capital, not remain standalone reports.

The operating organisation will be simplified around asset and network decisions. Terminal, pipeline, storage and scheduling leaders need clear spans, technical support and escalation routes. Shared specialists will publish service commitments and priority rules so scarce expertise is not allocated through relationships. The COO will review whether regional or functional layers add control or merely relay information.

Customer service during constraint will have an agreed operating protocol. Available capacity, contractual priority, safety limits, allocation, communication and recovery estimates must come from one controlled position. Exceptions require named commercial and operating approval. The COO will prevent different customers receiving incompatible promises from separate teams while the physical system remains constrained.

Asset projects and modifications will pass through operational-readiness gates. Design intent, maintainability, spares, procedures, training, permits, control integration and emergency response must be accepted before handover. Residual defects will have consequence, owner and funding. Construction completion or contractor demobilisation cannot force an asset into service before competent operating acceptance.

Productivity will be tested at the workface. Crew utilisation, contractor hours, maintenance wrench time, energy, losses and repeat intervention will reveal opportunity, but targets must reflect asset condition and service. The COO will stop productivity programmes that remove inspection, supervision or resilience capacity without an explicit risk decision.

Leadership cadence will connect daily control, weekly constraint resolution and monthly portfolio choices. Each level will have defined decisions and evidence. Meetings that only reproduce dashboards will be removed, and unresolved issues will not be carried forward without an owner, due date and escalation threshold.

The first 12 months

Within 75 days, the COO will map the ten largest constraints, simplify governance and assess leadership. The sponsor will receive immediate reliability and capacity choices.

By month eight, four cross-asset decisions should operate under new authority, two reliability constraints should improve and priority contractors should have tested recovery. Physical capacity reporting will reconcile with commercial plans.

At year-end, availability should improve 8%, unplanned deferment fall 15% and maintenance compliance exceed 95%. Customer fulfilment should remain above 95%, operating cost within 5% of plan and ready cover exist for 70% of pivotal roles.

What the board will measure

• Faster decisions with preserved technical authority.
• Reliable assets and disciplined maintenance.
• Commercial commitments matched to physical capacity.
• Tested resilience across partners and infrastructure.
• Strong operating leadership.

The person

You are a COO or gas infrastructure executive with 18–22 years of experience. You have carried scope above ₹26,500 crore and led at least 1,125 people. Your record includes terminals, pipelines, storage and customer service.

The board will test a forum you removed, a capacity decision made under commodity pressure and a reliability recovery sustained beyond one quarter. Project-only experience will not qualify.

This hybrid Mumbai role requires extensive asset and partner travel.

Compensation and terms

Fixed compensation is ₹3.2–4.6 crore plus performance variable and LTI. Measures include availability, service, cost, maintenance, resilience and succession.

Confidentiality

The business, assets, customers, contracts and operating constraints remain confidential. Further detail follows qualification and mutual confidentiality.