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OANDO WINS DEAL OF THE YEAR AWARD AT AFRICA ENERGY WEEK 2024

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-Story by Joy Agamah

Oando Plc, Africa’s leading energy solutions provider listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NGX) and Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) is pleased to announce that the Company has emerged winner of the ‘Deal of the Year’ award at Africa Energy Week (AEW) 2024.

The Africa Energy Chamber (AEC), the organisers of the annual week-long oil and gas conference, hosted and recognised different stakeholders at a Gala and Award night held at the Cape Town International Conference Centre (CITCC), on Tuesday, 5 November, 2024.

In a category comprising other high-profile deals in the sector and across Africa, Oando won the award in recognition of the Company’s recently completed landmark $783 million acquisition of the Nigerian Agip Oil Company (NAOC) from the Italian Energy firm Eni on 22 August, 2024.

This acquisition, 10 years in the making since Oando’s initial entry into the ConocoPhillips/NAOC/NNPC Joint Venture (JV) in 2014 when the Company acquired ConocoPhillips Nigeria business, doubled the company’s stake in the JV to 40% and operator of the assets.

In receiving the award, the Company’s Group Chief Executive, Wale Tinubu, remarked “We are delighted and honoured to receive the ‘Deal of the Year’ award from Africa Energy Week. It’s been a remarkable year on many fronts. First, we marked our 30th anniversary as a business, then concluded our strategic plan to acquire our second IOC in a decade, Nigerian Agip Oil Company (NAOC) and step up to the role of operator.

“This award is more than just an accolade for a successful deal closure; it represents a public acknowledgement of the culmination of 30 years of grit, hard work, resilience, and sheer belief in our vision. It is a testament to my belief that with the #HumansOfOando, impossible is nothing. I’d like to thank the dream team, the #HumansOfOando, our financiers, and partners for their belief and role in making this award a reality.”

The acquisition is the culmination of a decade of preparation, strategic planning, and unwavering commitment to a vision of becoming Africa’s first indigenous International Oil Company.

It is a testament to the organisation’s 30-year journey spanning the entire energy value chain, with consistent and deliberate actions at each stage that have led to the advancement of indigenous participation in the industry.

The Deal of the Year award “recognises the most transformative and impactful deal in the energy sector – honouring excellence in negotiation, strategic alignment, innovation and collaboration – and celebrates deals that drive advancements in energy and economic growth.”

With this year’s AEW theme of “Invest in Africa Energies: Energy Growth Through an Enabling Environment”, the AEC, through the AEW Awards 2024, recognised other persons, International (IOCs) and National Oil Companies (NOCs) across the continent through awards in 10 categories.

 

Tinubu at the event also delivered a key note address with the topic, Transforming Africa’s Oil and Gas landscape through strategic Merger and Acqusition.

During the address he  noted that indigenous companies contribute approximately 30% of the country’s crude oil production and hold around 40% of the total oil reserves. Additionally, they account for 60% of the country’s gas production and approximately 32% of gas reserves. This data underscores the growing significance of local players in the African oil and gas sector.

He also highlighted improvements in the business environment, citing the improved Ease of Doing Business driven by recent reforms that have attracted increased investments in energy. Tinubu pointed to the successful Implementation of the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA), which has established a regulatory framework that enhances transparency and boosts investor confidence.

Tinubu’s remarks included a call for enhanced collaboration among policymakers, investors, and oil and gas companies to foster the growth of indigenous firms through supportive regulations, financing access, and technology transfer. He urged stakeholders to focus on leveraging M&As to diversify and expand capabilities within the sector while emphasizing the need to strengthen Africa’s institutional and financing capacity for local firms.

As Oando continues on its growth trajectory, Tinubu’s insights served as a powerful reminder of the strategic importance of indigenous companies in Africa’s energy transformation and the collective effort required to drive sustainable development across the continent.

 

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Shoreline Group secures US$200 million Afreximbank Facility

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Shoreline Group today announced that African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) has approved a US$200 million facility in favour of Shoreline Power Company Limited and co-borrowers including Arkad S.p.A., Shoreline’s majority-owned engineering and construction platform.
Approved in June 2026, the facility was arranged and provided by Afreximbank as sole mandated lead arranger and lender. It provides bonding and working-capital capacity for Arkad’s delivery of the Hassi Bir Rekaiz project and supports Shoreline and its affiliates in developing further pipeline and infrastructure
projects in Nigeria and other permitted jurisdictions.
“This is a defining transaction for Shoreline and Arkad. We built Arkad as an African- sponsored engineering platform capable of competing at the highest level, and it is now delivering against a billion-dollar energy contract. Afreximbank’s US$200 million commitment gives the platform the financial strength to match its engineering capability and pursue further major infrastructure mandates. It demonstrates that African enterprises can assemble the capital, capability and partnerships required to compete for infrastructure at international scale.”
Hassi Bir Rekaiz Phase 2a Arkad holds 44 per cent of the approximately US$1 billion EPCCS-1 contract awarded by Groupement
Hassi Bir Rekaiz (GHBR) to an unincorporated consortium led by Egypt’s Petrojet, which holds 56 percent. EPCCS-1 covers engineering, procurement, construction, commissioning and start-up for the Phase 2a central processing facility and related infrastructure at the Hassi Bir Rekaiz field in Algeria’s Berkine
Basin.
GHBR is the joint operating entity for the licence, held by Sonatrach with 51 per cent and Thailand’s PTTEP with 49 per cent. The project includes a new crude oil processing facility with capacity of 31,500 barrels per day, facilities for associated gas and produced-water treatment, approximately 217 kilometres
of pipelines and the brownfield modifications required to integrate existing Phase 1 infrastructure.
The facilities are designed to support later expansion to 63,000 barrels per day under Phase 2b.
“This financing addresses the instruments that determine whether an EPC contractor can execute at scale: performance guarantees, advance payment guarantees and working capital through the project cycle. Hassi Bir Rekaiz is a demanding scope, combining a new central processing facility, associated treatment systems, pipelines and brownfield integration. With Petrojet, and with the support of Shoreline and Afreximbank, Arkad is focused on disciplined delivery against the project’s safety, quality and schedule requirements.”
The transaction was structured under Afreximbank’s Engineering, Procurement and Construction Initiative, which supports African engineering and construction firms with the financial instruments required to compete for and execute large infrastructure contracts. Afreximbank also supported the Arkad-Petrojet partnership through its EPC twinning work at the Intra-African Trade Fair held in Algiers
in 2025.
According to Afreximbank, the transaction is its first support for a Sub-Saharan African contractor undertaking a major infrastructure project in North Africa. For Shoreline, it demonstrates a practical model for combining African ownership and capital with established international engineering andindustrial capability.

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BUSINESSWOMAN AISHA ACHIMUGU SPEAKS OUT, CALLS FOR PROTECTION OF LIFE AND RESPECT FOR RULE OF LAW

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Nigerian businesswoman and investor Aisha Achimugu has made a public appeal for the protection of her life, her family, and her business interests while alleging a sustained campaign of intimidation, media trial, and asset seizures.

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Achimugu, in a statement Tuesday, said she is facing actions that she described as an affront to the rule of law and natural justice.
She then called for the respect for court orders and for an end to what she termed misleading media coverage about her person and companies.
According to Achimugu, the widow of the late Engr. Sulaiman Achimugu, former Managing Director of the Pipelines and Product Marketing Company, PPMC, she has over the last three decades built businesses in the oil and gas and other sectors, and runs the SAM Empowerment Foundation, SEF, which she said has implemented health, education, and community projects across Nigeria.
The businesswoman, however, alleged that since 2023 she has been the subject of investigations and actions by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC.
Narrating her ordeals, Achimugu noted that in 2023, the EFCC’s Port Harcourt zonal office froze her personal accounts, her children’s accounts, and company accounts linked to the Felak Group, based on an interim forfeiture order.
She said this was connected to a mistaken association with MBA Forex and Capital Investment.
Achimugu stated that in January 2024 she honoured an EFCC invitation with her counsel, clarified her company’s single transaction with MBA Forex, and refunded N58 million by bank draft to the EFCC recovery account.
In March 2025, the businesswoman said she received WhatsApp messages inviting her to the EFCC Port Harcourt office. Her lawyer responded in writing, proposing dates in April 2025. Despite this, she alleged a media campaign began on March 10, 2025 linking her to wrongdoing.
On March 28, 2025, the same day her company, Oceangate Oil & Gas Limited, submitted proof of $20 million payment to NUPRC for oil blocks PPL 302-DO and PPL 3007, subsequently, she claimed the EFCC declared her a “Wanted Person” for “conspiracy and money laundering.” She also alleged that EFCC operatives searched her home that day.
In April 2025, Achimugu said she filed a fundamental rights suit at the Federal High Court, Abuja. But upon returning to Nigeria on April 28, 2025 from a foreign trip, she alleged she was taken into EFCC custody, granted bail by a judge, but released five days later. She also said her international passport was collected.
She alleged further asset actions, including freezing of bank accounts, and the seizure of vehicles from her home in January 2026. She said matters relating to these actions are the subject of ongoing litigation and appeals.
Achimugu also alleged that her United States visa was revoked in April 2025, and that she encountered issues with visa processing related to her Grenadian citizenship, which she linked to media reports citing the EFCC’s declaration.
Achimugu stated that she has invested nearly $90 million in Nigeria’s oil and gas sector in the last five years and has attracted over $100 million in investments into the economy while directly employs close to 200 Nigerians.
However, she said the actions of the anti-graft agency have affected her business operations, international partnerships, and family, including her elderly parents and young children.
Achimugu then called on the National Assembly, the Judiciary, security services, and local and international human rights organizations to examine her case.
She also asked for the protection of her life and properties, respect for court orders, and an end to what she described as a “media trial”.
“I believe that justice delayed is justice denied, and I am not afraid to face the law provided due process is followed. My lawyers are pursuing all legal remedies locally and internationally,” she said.
Achimugu added that she remains committed to Nigeria and to supporting private sector growth.

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Nigeria’s Credit Crisis: Why Firms Still Struggle for Loans

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Nigeria’s Credit Crisis deepens as businesses struggle with high lending rates, weak bank credit access and government borrowing despite falling inflation (more…)

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