10 Nigerian billionaires who made their fortune pumping oil

Benedict Peters

Benedict Peters is an African billionaire businessman with extensive assets in the oil and gas and mining industries. He is the founder and CEO of Aiteo Group, Nigeria’s largest indigenous oil producer, and Bravura Holdings, a vertically integrated mining company developing platinum, lithium, steel, copper, and gold assets in countries throughout Africa, including Ghana, Democratic Republic of Congo, Zambia, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Mozambique, Côte d’Ivoire, Sierra Leone, Guinea Bissau, and South Africa. His estimated net worth as of November 2014 was $2.7 billion. Ventures Africa ranked Peters as the 17th richest person in Africa and the seventh richest in Nigeria. He is a born-again Christian and a prominent financier of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Aiteo Group is an integrated, global-focused Nigerian energy company founded in February 2008. It is the successor entity to Sigmund Communnecci Limited. The company focuses on oil and gas exploration and production; bulk petroleum storage; refining of petroleum products; trading, marketing, and supply as well as power generation and distribution

Mike Adenuga

Mike Adenuga is a Nigerian billionaire businessman and the third richest person in Africa. He built his fortune through Telecom and oil production. In 1990, he received a drilling license and in 1991, his Consolidated Oil struck oil in the shallow waters of Southwestern Ondo State, making him the first indigenous oil company to do so in commercial quantity. His oil exploration firm, Conoil Production, operates 6 oil blocks in the Niger Delta. His current net worth is $3.2 billion.

Today, his oil and gas company is known for extracting, producing, and selling crude oil, as well as a range of lubricants, greases, and bitumen. It also supplies petrol, aviation turbine kerosene, dual-purpose kerosene, low-pour fuel oil, and automotive gasoline/grease oil. In 2016, the revenue of the company was 85 billion naira.

Tein Jack-Rich

Jack-Rich was born on the 28th day of January 1975, to a humble family of Elder and Mrs. Teinbo Saturday Seliyefubara Jack-Rich, in Rivers State, Nigeria. At the age of just ten, the responsibility to become a man was naturally bestowed on young Jack-Rich who at the time had lost both parents and without any guardian except God Almighty to chart his path. After twelve years of hard work, Jack-Rich founded J+G Global Gas & Oilfield Limited in 1998 and other subsidiaries to provide oil and gas-related services. Today he is the President/Founder of Belemaoil Producing Limited, the first indigenous oil Exploration and Production Company in Nigeria to emerge from an oil Producing Community in the heart of the Niger Delta. Belemaoil Producing Limited (BPL) acquired the entire 40% participating interest in OML-55 from Chevron Nigeria Limited in a competitive bidding process in 2013 and consequently became the operator of the OML-55 Asset in the Joint Venture between Belemaoil Producing Limited and Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). As of 2023, his network is $1.5 billion.

Theophilus Danjuma

Theophilus Danjuma is a former Nigerian defense minister and the founder of the oil exploration company South Atlantic Petroleum, which owns upstream assets in Nigeria, the Republic of Benin, the Central African Republic, and Madagascar. In 1998, Gen Theophilus Yakubu Danjuma was awarded an oil block by then military dictator, Gen Sani Abacha. The deal would go on to make Danjuma “one of a handful of Nigerians made extraordinarily wealthy from the country’s energy reserves”, Bloomberg writes. To acquire the block at the time, Dajuma paid $ 25 million for an oil field exploration license. In the years that followed, Danjuma gradually made the shift from deep-water oil fields to other spheres where he amassed more power and fortune. In 2006, Danjuma’s South Atlantic Petroleum Ltd. sold almost half its contractor rights for a section of Nigeria’s coast to a state-backed Chinese firm for $1.8 billion. From 1998 to the present day, Danjuma has become a billionaire who owns hotels and real estate in Nigeria and across the world. 80-year-old Danjuma is now worth $1.2 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Mohammed Indimi

Mohammed Indimi is the chairman and leading shareholder of Oriental Energy Resources, a privately held Nigerian oil exploration and production company he founded in 1990. Oriental currently has three projects offshore of Nigeria’s Niger Delta region. Six of his children serve on the company’s board. His net worth dropped from an estimated $670 million a year ago due to ongoing low oil prices. He got an oil prospecting license in 1990 to acquire a minimum of up to 1000 km of seismic data and to drill at least three exploratory wells.

Oriental Energy has also developed an offshore production hub centered on the established Ebok Terminal which is used for the storage and offloading of crude oil. His net worth is currently $500 million

Wale Tinubu

Jubril Adewale “Wale” Tinubu CON (born 26 June 1967) is a Nigerian business executive and lawyer, who is the group chief executive of Oando PLC.

Wale Tinubu has a proven track record in building successful businesses across the energy value chain. In 1993, he co-founded Ocean and Oil Group, one of the first indigenous trading companies with extensive operations exporting Nigerian petroleum products. In 2000, during the Nigerian Government’s privatization exercise, Wale Tinubu led Ocean and Oil’s successful bid for a stake in Unipetrol. Two years later, he led the largest-ever acquisition of a quoted Nigerian company, with Unipetrol PLC’s purchase of Agip Nigeria PLC. The group was rebranded to Oando PLC in 2003. Wale Tinubu is globally recognized for his successful transformation of Oando from a petroleum marketing company to an integrated energy group, including in the downstream – OVH Energy (formerly Oando Marketing) and Oando Trading; midstream – Axxela Limited (formerly Oando Gas and Power) and upstream – Oando Energy Services and Oando Energy Resources. Under his leadership, the strength of the Oando brand name and her subsidiaries was brought to the fore when in 2016 unhindered by a repressed economy, strategic partnerships in Oando PLC’s downstream and midstream businesses (OVH Energy and Axxela) pulled in $300 million in capital investment into Nigeria’s economy.

His business acumen led to the pioneering development of the first privately owned mid-stream jetty in West Africa which sits within OVH Energy’s business portfolio. The $150 million investment was designed to eliminate the operational constraints and inefficiencies in petroleum product importation into Nigeria. In the same year, Oando concluded its phased divestment from Axxela to a vehicle owned by Helios Investment Partners LLP (“Helios”), a premier Africa-focused private investment firm, for a total of ~ $160 million. Axxela is the developer of Nigeria’s foremost natural gas distribution network and captive power solutions. The company pioneered the private sector piping and distribution of natural gas to industrial and commercial consumers, successfully reviving private sector participation in Nigeria’s gas distribution business. Today, Oando PLC is made up of Oando Energy Resources (OER) its upstream subsidiary.

Folorunsho Alakija

Folorunsho Alakija is vice chair of Famfa Oil, a Nigerian oil exploration company with a stake in Agbami Oilfield, a prolific offshore asset. Famfa Oil’s partners include Chevron and Petrobras. The Nigerian government awarded Alakija’s company an oil prospecting license in 1993, which was later converted to an oil mining lease. Her current net worth is $1B. Famfa Oil Limited is one of the largest indigenous exporters of Crude Oil in Nigeria. Famfa Oil is committed to developing one of the deepest and largest offshore discoveries in the Gulf. The Agbami field contains 1 bbl of recoverable reserves and has been in production with Famfa Oil’s partners since 2008. At its peak production, the Agbami field yields up to 250,000.00 barrels of oil per day, which has accounted for over 10% of Nigeria’s total daily production capacity. This has been possible through the Agbami FPSO, (Floating Production Storage and Offloading) vessel, which is located 75 miles off the coast of Nigeria at a depth of 4,800 ft. To date, Agbami is one of the largest and deepest offshore reservoirs in West Africa. Famfa Oil is committed to investing in the pan-African space of the oil industry either through an investment of other similar assets or the development of its core capabilities and skills that are required to be a world-class company.

Tunde Afolabi

Chief Tunde J. Afolabi is the Chairman/CEO of Amni International Petroleum Development Company Ltd1. He received his BA in Geology in 1973 from Franklin & Marshall College, Lancaster Pennsylvania US, and an MSc in Geology in 1975 from Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana, US1. He started his career with Texaco Inc. in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1974 and continued with Mobil Inc. in Dallas, Texas in 19791. He is a professional Geologist with over 40 years of oil and gas exploration and production experience from international and independent oil and gas companies.

He was conferred with a Doctor of Technology (Honoris Causa) by Ladoke Akintola University, Ogbomosho, Osun State, Nigeria in 2009, and a Doctor of Geology (Honoris Causa) at Ajayi Crowther University, Oyo, Nigeria, in 20171. He is a member of several professional bodies and an active supporter of non-partisan socio-political engagements across Africa. Amni International Petroleum Development Company Limited (Amni) is an Independent Oil and gas Exploration and production (E&P) company with its head office in Lagos, Nigeria. Amni pioneered the participation of independent companies in offshore oil and gas fields in West Africa.

The company has entered a growth phase, as it actively seeks out new assets, expanding into Ghana and other parts of Africa as the first part of this phase. With its 3.5 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of gas reserves, Amni is positioned to be a player in this rapidly expanding market.

Seinye O.B. Lulu-Briggs

Dr. Seinye O.B. Lulu-Briggs is a notable figure in the Nigerian oil industry. She is the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Moni Pulo Limited, a top indigenous player in the upstream sector of Nigeria’s oil and gas industry. Moni Pulo Limited is a Nigerian independent and wholly indigenous exploration and production company, founded in 1992 by her late husband, High Chief Olu Benson Lulu-Briggs.

Before joining the oil industry, Dr. Seinye Lulu-Briggs started her career in 1981 as a pioneer staff of the Computer Services Department of the Central Bank of Nigeria2. She later joined the private sector where her business acumen and strength to navigate the murky waters of high finance and business became sharpened.

Through her stakeholding and diversified investments in critical sectors of the Nigerian economy, ranging from the upstream sector of the oil and gas industry to the beverage, hospitality, and agricultural sectors, Mrs. Lulu-Briggs has continued to make far-reaching positive impacts in both the lives of the people of the Niger Delta region and the Nigerian economy.

She is also the MD and CEO of La Sien Bottling Company, a foods and beverages firm producing premium and refreshing beverage products for consumers across Nigeria. As MD and CEO, Dr. Mrs Seinye O. B. Lulu-Briggs presides over the affairs of Soliyama Limited, a multifunctional haulage, asset-leasing and manpower management company that simplifies and streamlines resource management for clients in Nigeria’s oil and gas sector.

Although her net worth is not publicly disclosed, her late husband, High Chief Olu Benson Lulu-Briggs, was ranked among the Forbes list of the first 40 richest Africans. As for the performance and valuation of Moni Pulo Limited, specific financial details are not publicly available. However, the company has been successful in securing significant upstream positions in frontier plays in Nigeria.

Tope Shonubi

Tope Shonubi is a co-founder and Executive Director of Sahara Group1. He co-founded Sahara Energy Resource Ltd, an oil and gas company, with Tonye Cole and Ade Odunsi in 19961. He is known for his clinical business vision and unfussy moral rigor. He was introduced to the oil business and started selling to several companies, including Wale Tinubu’s OANDO.

Before his success in the oil industry, Shonubi was a Special Assistant to Olusegun Obasanjo, the former President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria on International Affairs. He attended Kings College in Lagos State, the University of Lagos, and Middlesex University in the UK. He was recognized as a Young Global Champion at the 16th Annual Thisday Awards in 20111.

Asharami Energy is an Exploration and Production company with a strategy to deliver sustainable growth through the acquisition and development of viable assets across Sub-Saharan Africa. The company has assets at various stages ranging from exploratory fields to mature producing fields with a capacity to produce at least 15,000 BOPD and plans to boost production to at least 100,000 BOPD over the next five years.

Asharami Energy has been awarded an “A” rating by the Energy Regulation Board of Zambia in recognition of its exceptional performance and quality service to customers in the region. While Shonubi’s exact net worth is not publicly disclosed, he is recognized as a successful entrepreneur in Nigeria’s oil industry.