Adebayo Adeoye
A journey of a thousand miles, in the words of Chinese philosopher Laozi, famously romanticized as Lao Tzu, begins with a single step.
Laozi, also an author, had penned those words to encourage people to start and take action towards their goals in life.
Several decades after Laozi literally gifted the world this inspiring quote, evidence abounds that a Nigerian businessman, Jubril Adewale Tinubu, CON has been most inspired by it.
It all began when he took a leap of faith to dump Law, a profession he had practised
with impressive record, while he worked in a family law firm, K.O. Tinubu and Co., from 1990 to 1994.
Tinubu, who obtained a degree in Law from the University of Liverpool and a Master of Law from the London School of Economic, wasn’t under any illusion about his next move. His vision was as clear as daylight: to rule the world of oil and gas business.
It was a steely resolve, one that he was convinced would fetch him global recognition in the end.
To achieve this, he carefully profiled two individuals whom he believed would prop him up in this life-defining journey: Omamofe Boyo and Onajite Okoloko.
Following preliminary feasibility studies, the trio floated Ocean and Oil Services Limited in 1994 to supply diesel and Low Pour Fuel Oil (LPFO) to various shipping firms and offshore exploration companies in Nigeria.
From the outset, they were not driven by any inordinate ambition; rather, what was uppermost in their minds was to first register their presence in the nation’s thriving oil and gas sector.
It was a humble beginning, as the budding oil company started out only with a vessel, MT Carolina, anchored in
Bonny Island, Rivers State to supply diesel and Low Pour Fuel Oil (LPFO) to off-shore companies from the Port-Harcourt, Rivers State refinery.
Before the eyes of the morbid critics, Ocean and Oil Services Limited successfully acquired six ships within its six years of operations.
Some four years after, Tinubu and his partners caused a stir when they sought to acquire a 30 % controlling interest in the defunct Unipetrol, following government’s decision to sell its controlling 60% stake in Unipetrol Plc,an integrated downstream oil marketing company.
Though many industry watchers had tagged it a huge joke, it was obvious they were belittling the capabilities of the brains behind the company, which was already showing evidence of a potentially big player.
The planned acquisition, contrary to the naysayers, turned out a dream come through. And by 2001, Ocean and Oil Services had increased its shares in Unipetrol to 42%, owing to the support from its foreign technical partners, Compagnia Espanola De Petroleos (CEPSA), the second largest oil group in Spain.
Since then Tinubu has shown the oil and gas sector that he is not one your run-of-the-mill oil player.
Interestingly, in 2003, almost a decade after it surfaced on the nation’s oil and gas sector, the newly acquired companies were merged, resulting in the historic birth of Oando Limited.
Still consolidating on its gains, Oando Plc, in 2005, secured a cross-border listing on the Johannesburg Stock of Exchange (JSE) in South Africa in 2005!
In its first 30 years of operations, Oando Plc now prides itself on a number of subsidiaries with staggering value-added services: Oando Marketing Limited, OML, one of the largest downstream petroleum marketing companies in Nigeria with over 500 retail outlets across Nigeria, Ghana, and Togo; Oando Supply and Trading Limited, OST, one of the largest independent traders of crude and refined petroleum products in sub-Saharan Africa incorporated in 2004, among several others.
Unlike its competitors, Oando’s exploits in the upstream journey have continued to attract interesting discourses among industry watchers.
The first shocker was when it secured a 42.75% interest in the marginal field, OML 56.
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It later steadied its feet in 2007, with the acquisition of a 15% stake in OML 125 & OML 134.
In 2014, Oando Energy Resources, OER, acquired ConocoPhillips Nigerian assets for $1.8bn (inclusive of working capital), secured a 20% interest in the NAOC-Joint Venture (“the JV”) and augmented its total net 2P reserves to 503 million barrels of oil equivalent (mmboe), with peak net production levels of 45,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (kboep/d).
A careful study of its rising profile points to the fact that Oando has steadily been eyeing the global stage. And Tinubu is not making any pretense about it. In 2016, it announced that it was divesting from its Naira-earning businesses to focus on its US$-earning portfolio.
It was a well thought out business plan, considering the spate of the sale of its interest in the downstream between 2016 and 2019 as well as its stake in the midstream in 2017.
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Ten years after the widely reported purchase of ConocoPhillips Nigerian asset, Oando, in August 2024, completed the acquisition of 100% of Eni’s interest in NAOC, the operating company of the JV, thereby increasing its stake in the JV from 20% to 40%, and securing operatorship of the JV as well as doubling its 2P reserves to 996.2 mmboe.
Tinubu-led Oando has, nevertheless, been hit by the vagaries of business. This flip side to its otherwise enviable feats in the sector was inputted in the annals of the company about 20 years after its quiet but impactful entry into the sector.
To its shareholders, the news of the loss of a humongous N184bn in the 2014 financial year was a sour taste in their mouths.
But the company, by the middle of that same year, successfully reversed the doleful story by getting new investors, including Vitol, a Dutch oil trading giant, and Helios Holdings, to put their money in its downstream arm, Oando Marketing.
Obviously, the Oando trajectory is a story waiting to be told. This became more tellingly interesting on February 27, 2025 when news of its selection as the preferred bidder for the Guaracara refinery, Trinidad and Tobago broke.
The awards, no doubt, underscores Oando’s track record of reliability, innovation, infrastructure development, which aligns with its corporate strategic vision of expanding across the Caribbean region.
Speaking on the development, Tinubu, the Group Chief Executive Officer, GCEO, described the partnership as “a strategic bridge between Africa and the Caribbean.”
According to him, “Oando’s involvement in the refinery will serve as a catalyst for deeper Afro-Caribbean collaboration in the energy sector, paving the way for increased trade, investment, and knowledge exchange. This initiative underscores Africa’s growing influence in the global energy landscape and highlights the role of indigenous African companies in fostering economic transformation across borders.”
This development, which has been described as compelling chapter in the history of Oando, is a testament of its resolve to strengthen its presence in the international market.
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