New Delhi, Feb. 1: The government has converted Mangalore Refineries and Petrochemicals Ltd (MRPL) into an autonomous ?schedule B? public sector company and will be appointing a new managing director and director (finance) to run the company. Two officials of the petroleum ministry have also been appointed on the board of directors of the company.

The company has been closely managed by ONGC chairman Subir Raha with a team of vice-presidents after it was taken over close to two years ago following the exit of the Aditya Birla group from the loss-making joint venture with Hindustan Petroleum Corporation (HPCL). ONGC now owns a 74 per cent stake in MRPL, while the HPCL share has been reduced to 16 per cent.

MRPL, which had accumulated losses of Rs 1,200 crore, had clocked a net profit of Rs 440 crore during the first year of the ONGC takeover. This year the profits have gone up further to Rs 288 crore during the third quarter, which represents a six-fold increase over the corresponding figure in the year-ago period. The value of the MRPL scrip has also shot up in the last two years from Rs 7 to Rs 50 in the stock market.

The new managing director and director (finance) will be selected by the public sector enterprises selection board after which the names will be cleared by the appointments committee of the cabinet.

Raha had a grand plan for moving MRPL up the value chain into the petrochemicals business and had floated a Rs 25,000-crore proposal for taking up the venture in Mangalore. However, petroleum minister Mani Shankar Aiyar had nipped the proposal in the bud on the ground that ONGC should stick to oil exploration since it was its core area of competence.