In a major development, Indian Oil Corp (IOC) director-pipelines Akshay Kumar Singh will be the new MD and chief executive of the country’s biggest gas importer, Petronet LNG Ltd.

Singh will replace Prabhat Singh who completed his five-year term. The new CEO was selected after Petronet board modified terms that made just retired executives of PSUs ineligible.

The selection marks Singh’s return to the gas business. He was executive director at state-owned gas utility GAIL India Ltd before joining the IOC board in 2018.

Of the 11 candidates called for the interview by the panel, 10 turned up including V K Mishra, director finance and interim MD at PLL, GAIL director finance A K Tiwari, ONGC Videsh Ltd director finance Vivekanand, ONGC director finance Subhash Kumar, Chennai Petroleum Corp Ltd managing director SN Pandey, GAIL director marketing ES Ranganathan, OIL director HR Biswajit Roy, Indraprastha Gas managing director A K Jana and Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd (BPCL) chief general manager Amit Garg.

IOC director marketing Gurmeet Singh did not appear for the interview.

Petronet is a joint venture of IOC, GAIL, Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) and BPCL. The four state-owned firms hold 12.5 per cent stake each in the company whose chairman is the Oil Secretary.

Petronet operates liquefied natural gas (LNG) import terminal at Dahej in Gujarat and Kochi in Kerala.