An astute Drilling Engineer and an adept Well Control expert, Mr. Ajay Dixit has been bestowed with demanding assignments in ONGC. The recognised ‘Crisis Manager’ of many critical scenarios involving precarious well controls and blowouts was assigned to another challenging and critical responsibility by giving the leadership role of handling the HSE of the organization, as Chief HSE, the post which he is currently holding since July 2021.

Mr. Dixit is a graduate in Mechanical Engineering (Honours) from Regional Engineering College, Jaipur (NIT Jaipur). After starting his journey in ONGC in May, 1989 on Drilling Rigs in Jorhat and Western offshore he worked in different capacities in Assam Asset, Ankleshwar and Gandhar fields till 1998. 

For his ‘daredevilry’, professional approach and remarkable performance in handling critical crisis situations, ONGC’s CMD conferred him with CMD’s Professional of the Year Award in year 2004.

He joined as Head Central CMT (Crisis Management Team) in Ahmedabad in 2008, where in addition to the many remarkable Blowout Control and well control jobs performed for different ONGC Assets and other private and public sector E&P companies on pan India basis.

His special achievement was the development of a very competent core Central CMT team, having the capabilities of handling any Blow-out/well control situation independently. This team has earned name and fame along with good revenue for ONGC by providing expert crisis management services to other companies. He also designed most prolific training courses for fire personnel and drilling & work over field personnel on lesson learnt in blowout control/well control case histories. 

In 2014-15 for leading and controlling several major Blowout control operations with utmost safety and committed team spirit he was conferred with Oil Industry Safety award for exemplary contribution towards safety under Individual category by Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas.

As Head RCMT Mumbai Region, In March 2020, when the Corona Pandemic hit the world, Mr. Dixit volunteered to lead the Crew change operations in Offshore Rigs and along with his team conceptualized the SOP for crew change in pandemic times under lock down and the team executed the first crew change successfully in first week of May 2020 and subsequently managed this responsibility during Corona pandemic, which helped in continuation of smooth operations. 

After taking over the charge of Chief of HSE, he has taken various initiatives for improving HSE scenario and safety culture of the organization. With a good experience of working in critical and challenging situations, he is taking up the challenge of improving the HSE performance of the organization through all means and efforts. He has been instrumental in planning and implementation of an ambitious project of change, aptly called as Project Parivartan.

 The project is under progress and is aimed at achieving the best HSE benchmarks and strengthening the structure and culture of HSE.  He has been involved in various Committees at highest level for improving the HSE Management System, namely, the High Level Working Group established by MoPNG, audit Committee member for conducting Organizational Audits of various organizations spearheaded by OISD, Member of National Safety Council Board. He has been given another important responsibility by ONGC Management as part of team involved in upgradtion of ONGC’s training institute- IPSHEM, Goa to one of best in class. 

Taking ahead his proactive approach, he is giving specific stress on further system improvement through adoption of new initiatives and technologies, enhancement of skills and capabilities of personnel and taking up HSE related awareness assignments on mission mode. Emphasising upon the role of manpower as essential in success of any endeavour of an organization, he highlights on motivating the work force for adoption of the safety culture and imbibing safety in every operation.