Agip Annoints Tope Olaleye

AGIP NIGERIA has chosen Tope Olaleye as the exploration manager for its largest, most productive asset: the 200,000BOPD Joint Venture acreages in the central Niger Delta. The quiet, self effacing career geologist was a surprising choice over the visible Geophysicist Charles Ojo, who delivers most of Agip’s technical papers in the conference circuit and comes across, often, as the face of the company. Olaleye took over the job from Ayo Ogunde, who has moved upstairs to run the Nigerian Agip Exploration, the new affiliate in charge of frontier acreages. Mr Ogunde is also more involved in top management decisions, doing scenario planning for the company. Olaleye trained at the Obafemi Awolowo University in Ile Ife, Nigeria, graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Geology in 1977 and earned a Masters In Business Administration MBA (Management) from the University of Lagos in 1989. He started work in Agip on April 1, 1980 as an Assistant Exploration Geologist and rose through various positions from Subsurface Geologist to Senior Exploration Geologist and Project Leader at various times. He was appointed Deputy Manager, Exploration Assets Development in January 2005 before the current move.