The reason I believe Clark’s research has relevance for our energy security policy is because it highlights that performance success depends not just on technology and technical expertise but also on how effectively organisation and management can bring these two together. A scan of the EP industry will show that notwithstanding access to similar technology and expertise, companies have hugely divergent performance metrics. Take, for instance, the recovery rates of oil/gas from our producing fields. It is only 28 per cent of the discovered resources. The recovery rate internationally for fields of similar geology is over 40 per cent. Indian companies are not shortchanged by technology or technical expertise. So why the difference? It is (partly) because we are not comparably ‘efficient’ in the utilisation of enhanced oil recovery technologies.

I draw three conclusions for our energy security policy. First, it is not enough to access ‘state of the art’ technology. We must also put in place systems and processes and the equipment to effectively utilise this technology. Second, we must review the organisational and management structure of our leading energy companies. The objective must be to ensure the most productive use of our technocrats, capital and technology. And third, we must forestall an ‘energy brain drain’ through a radical overhaul of the existing monetary and career prospects of the energy professionals.

The ingredients of supply enhancement and demand conservation are people and technology. Our energy security policy must not underestimate the importance of the interface between the two. For it is in the effectiveness of this interface that the success of our efforts to arrest and then narrow the current energy demand-supply gap will rest.

... contd.