MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Calling The Falklands” Producer is an Oil Geologist.

The new producer of the BBC radio programme “Calling the Falklands” is a qualified geologist who has previously worked on oil exploration rigs. Thirty-four- year- old Nikita Gulhane, whose parents are from India and settled in Britain about fifty years ago, was born in Wembley, North London. He spoke of his job in an interview for Mercopress and met Mercopress Proprietor, Gus Meikle, in London.

Nikita Gulhane was appointed producer of "Calling the Falklands" a few weeks ago. He previously produced a BBC World Service youth programme, Mega Mix, which has been discontinued. He joined the BBC as a news trainee in 1994 after he was made redundant as a geologist when the price of oil dropped steeply and the rigs he was working on, off West Africa, failed to find oil. He gained his geology degree at Leeds University and a master's degree in mineral exploration at London's Imperial College.

He shudders at the thought of returning to the oil industry if offered the opportunity to join Falklands offshore oil exploration. "Having worked for a few years in the North Sea", he says, "the prospect of working on an oil platform in the South Atlantic for four weeks at a time looking at samples of rock and mush coming up, does not grab me with pleasure. Spending two hours flying in a helicopter, as I did in the North Sea, from Aberdeen via the Shetland Islands is not pleasant. After a few years on the rigs, it can become mind-numbingly dull. I enjoy myself incredibly as a reporter, which is a voyeuristic job".

Would he change his mind if he had the chance to make the second biggest oil discovery on earth, as the Falklands have the second richest potential source rock in the world after China? "That would be a thrill", he says, "but that discovery would be confirmed in the office". Told that some oil experts regard South Atlantic weather conditions as not as bad as the North Sea, he replied: "They tell you wrong. Relatives of Shackleton would disagree".

Learning about the Falkland Islands has been a steep learning curve. He gained his first impressions at school in Harrow, listening to news of the 1982 Conflict. "Coming into this job", he says, " all I knew about the Falklands was that there had been good signs for oil, they were islands which had good relations with some countries in South America, and what the economy is based on. It came as a complete surprise , that the Argentines, having invaded South Georgia, when I looked at a map, I thought: ?Bloody hell, South Georgia is miles away'. Likewise the Falklands Islands are miles away from Argentina.

"It has been interesting learning about the I