When Cairn India got Licence to drill

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It was the biggest oil find in India in more than two decades. Cairn plc had succeeded where the giant multinational, Shell, had failed. The 2004 oil find in Rajasthan state’s Barmer district not only changed Cairn’s fortunes forever on the London Stock Exchange, it also made the company a darling of the Indian government. The then oil minister, Mani Shankar Aiyar, even asked the state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) to take lessons from the smaller, nimbler company.

But as expectations built up over the next two years, a realisation dawned that the oil in Barmer was difficult to extract; it solidified even before it was brought up to the surface. Water availability and taking the oil to the market from the Thar were big problems. Chairman Bill Gammell realised that he had to find someone exceptional to get the best out of the prize find.