ONGC defends Helliburton's services

Guwahati, July 7: The Oil and Natural Gas Commission (ONGC) today defended the use of services of Helliburton in their oil field following questions raised by main opposition party the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP).

ONGC (Onshore) Director A K Hazarika clarified that Helliburton's subsidiary Kellog Brown&Roots (KBR) had earned notoriety in Iraq, but the parent company had completely delinked from its subsidiary since early last year.

The AGP are up in arms over the American multinational company seeking entry into the oilfields of Asom through the ONGC.

The Asom Gana Parishad, referring to the company's ''dubious track record'' in Iraq, has asked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to stop the ONGC from bringing Helliburton into the state and described the company, once headed by US vice-president Dick Cheney as a ''serious security risk'' to the troubled region.

''The entry of Helliburton might turn Asom into another Iraq, as the company is largely responsible for the present situation in that country,'' AGP president Brindawan Goswami told reporters.

However, Mr Hazarika, defending the use of the company and its exclusive expertise in reviving the aging oil fields of Asom, said that Helliburton as on date has no link with the KBR, which has earned bad name in Iraq.

Mr Goswami had earlier said that the ONGC had been lobbying to bring in the American engineering, construction and services giant to Asom for oil and natural gas exploration, but warned that this might ''pose a serious threat to the internal security of India in future.''

'' The dubious role of the American company is under the scanner even in the United States, and a number of non-resident Assamese living in the States have provided information about the dubious track record of the company,'' Mr Goswami said. Distributing copies of US newspaper reports which had raised questions about the role of Helliburton, he noted that the company, besides oil exploration, had played a key role in building and servicing military bases in Iraq.

He stated that the Pentagon had cancelled all the company's military logistics contracts because of innumerable charges of incompetence and corruption.

But the unfazed Mr Hazarika said that Helliburton had been their associate for the past 20 years in Asom and would continue to do so. '' They are one of the nearly dozen such service providers who are working for us in the fields of Upper Asom.'' However, the AGP leader called upon all political parties to oppose the company's entry into the state and demanded that the Centre order a thorough probe into all the dealings between the ONGC and Helliburton.

The AGP feared that if a company with such a dubious track record was allowed to go exploring for oil and natural gas in a strategically vulnerable area like Asom, it would pose a major security threat to the nation.

He alleged that the company was only eyeing the 1.3 billion tonnes of crude oil and 156 billion cubic meters of natural gas in the oilfields of Asom.

UNI