Panaji (Goa),  Top cueists like World Champion Pankaj Advani, Alok Kumar, World billiards champion Rupesh Shah and former World and Asian Billiards Champion Sourav Kothari will be among the top contenders in the 17th Petroleum Sports Promotion Board (PSPB) Inter-unit Billiards and Snooker Tournament scheduled at the Clube Tennis De Gaspar Dias here from March 25-29.

Five Petroleum organisations will be participating in the tournament being organised by the Oil & Natural Gas Limited (ONGC).

The host organisation, ONGC will be represented by 32 international medals winner, Padma Bhushan, Padma Shri and Khel Ratna awardee Pankaj Advani, former Asian billiards and snooker champion, Asian Games bronze medallist and current world masters snooker No.2 Alok Kumar, three-time world billiards champion, Rupesh Shah, former world and Asian billiards champion Sourav Kothari, two-time Asian billiards champion and current Asian billiards no. 2, Dhruv Sitwala.

Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL) will be represented by former World Games gold medallist and Asian snooker champion, Aditya Mehta. His other teammates are 2019 World 6Reds Champion Laxman Rawat, former world team snooker bronze medallist Brijesh Damani, and former world billiards bronze medallist Dhvaj Haria, the organisers informed in a press release on Thursday.

The BPCL team will be represented by former World Team Billiards champion and multiple-time world billiards no. 2 Devendra Joshi, World Team Cup champion Manan Chandra, former National 6Reds champion Shahbaaz Adil Khan and 2019 Asian Under-21 bronze medallist and current National 6Reds champion S. Shrikrishna, former National Sub-junior snooker champion Kreishh Gurbaxani.

The other organisations participating are Oil India Limited and Numaligarh Refinery Limited (NRL).

For the non-professional category events, the defending champion Arif Akhtar will be seen in action.