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The African Petroleum Producers’ Organization (APPO) has elected Diamantino Pedro Azevedo, Minister of Petroleum Resources of Angola, as President for the year 2022

Samou Seidou Adambi, Minister of Water and Mines of Benin, will be the Vice President and Celestin Enanto, Executive Board Member for Benin, Chairman.

The elections were unanimously made at the 41st Ministerial Session of the APPO Council of Ministers.

The next Ordinary Session of the Ministerial Council will be held in Angola during the last quarter of 2022 at a date to be communicated by the host country.

The 41st Ministerial Session “resolved to continue the exploitation of its Member Countries’ huge oil and gas resources for the economic emancipation of its people while also exploring the use of renewable energies”, according to a closing statement released by the APPO secretariat.

Top on the agenda of the Ministerial discussions was the Future of the Oil and Gas industry in Africa in the light of the Global pursuit of Energy Transition, with ministers acknowledging the reality of climate change and expressing their support for any human efforts aimed at tackling the dangers of climate change.

“The Session noted that the current approach to energy transition is unilateral imposition where the developed countries that have for over one hundred years used fossil fuels to grow their economies and societies and have all along been aware of the dangers of fossil fuel emissions, are now telling the world that fossil fuels are dangerous to mankind and that all should abandon it”, the statement adds.

The Ministers noted that this aggressive drive for Energy Transition is coming at a time that African economies are poised to launch themselves into industrialization, which requires a lot of energy, whereas the economies of the developed countries now require less energy because of their transformation from manufacturing to knowledge production and artificial intelligence.

The Ministers identified the imminent challenges that the oil and gas industry will face in Africa as international financiers withdraw funding for the industry, and oil and gas research institutions in the developed countries that have always led the technological development are closing their petroleum faculties.

Sola Adebawo has retired as Manager, Communications at Chevron Nigeria, and taken a new job at an independent E& P company. 

He is the new General Manager – Government, Joint Venture, and External Relations at Heritage Energy Operational Services Limited (HEOSL), a subsidiary of Heritage Oil Limited (a Jersey-headquartered international oil and gas company) and operator of the Joint Venture between Nigeria Petroleum Development Company (a subsidiary of NNPC) and Shoreline Natural Resources Limited (SNRL) in Oil Mining Lease (OML)30. Heritage Oil also has equity in SNRL.

“In his role, Mr. Adebawo is responsible for managing the relationship with all HEOSL’s external stakeholders”, HEOSL says in a press release.

Adebawo was, for the last 10 years, Chevron Nigeria’s Manager for Corporate communications, a pivotal job in the company’s large Public Affairs division. He joined the American oil giant in 1996 and became Manager for Corporate Communications in December 2011.

“Mr. Adebawo is a business leader with profound public affairs and reputation management expertise as well as twenty-five years’ oil and gas industry experience in stakeholder management, public relations, issues/crisis management, brand management, strategic communication, corporate social responsibility, and business strategy”, the release states.

He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Mass Communication from the University of Lagos, Akoka, Nigeria; a Master’s degree in Media and Communication from the Pan Atlantic University, Lagos Nigeria, and is currently a doctoral researcher focused on strategic communication and stakeholder management.  

Irish explorer Tullow Oil plc has dived deep into Africa to appoint the next chairman of its board. It has picked the South African business executive Phuthuma Nhleko as an independent non-executive director and chairman-designate. Nhleko joins the Board as a non-executive director on 25 October 2021 and will take over as chairman of Tullow from Dorothy Thompson, following a “suitable” handover period and after Ms. Thomson steps down as Chair and retires from the Board by the year end.

Tullow Oil’s press release sounds overly enthusiastic about the new appointment. The incoming chairman has a good handle on the African sensibility. And most of Tullow’s operations are in Africa. He also has a feel for oil and gas, having been a director of BP.

“Phuthuma brings extensive emerging markets experience to Tullow having worked successfully across Africa over the past three decades”, the company says. “Phuthuma was Chief Executive of MTN Group, the leading pan-African telecommunications company, from 2002 to 2011. During his time with MTN, the Group grew rapidly in Africa and the Middle East, gaining over 185 million subscribers to become one of the largest listed companies in Africa. In 2013, Phuthuma returned to MTN as a non-executive Director and Chairman until 2019. This included a period as Executive Chairman from 2015 to 2017. He remained part of the international advisory board for the business until August 2021”.

After stepping down as Chief Executive of MTN in 2011, Nhleko was a non-executive Director at BP plc (2011-16) and Anglo-American plc (2011-15). He also served previously on the Boards of Nedbank and Old Mutual in South Africa.

Tullow Oil’s chairman designate is currently chairman of Phembani Group, an investment group which he founded in 1994, and is Chairman-designate of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange Ltd. Phuthuma is also a non-executive Director of South African downstream energy company, Engen Petroleum, and a non-executive Director of IHS Towers, the NYSE-listed Emerging Markets Telecom Infrastructure Provider.

Phuthuma holds a BSc in Civil Engineering from Ohio State University and an MBA from Atlanta University.

Roger Brown, Seplat Energy’s Chief Executive Officer, has overhauled the executive leadership of the company.

In the one year since he took over the reins of Africa’s largest homegrown E&P company, Brown has devolved his executive powers extensively, converting the General Managers of the regional assets, which form the company’s base business, into Managing Directors, creating an Energy Unit for new business and bolstering the Public Affairs department as a directorate.

In the event, Ayodele Olatunde is promoted from General Manager East, to Managing Director Seplat East Onshore Limited, fully overseeing the Oil Mining Lease (OML) 53 (which hosts the Ohaji South field, the company’s portion of the straddling Assa North /Ohaji South ((ANOH) field, as well as Seplat’s interest in OML 55, which is operated by Belemaoil.

Afolabi Folorunso, who was General Manager West, is now Managing Director Seplat West Ltd, with a portfolio that includes OMLs 4, 38 and 41, the acreages upon which the company was created in 2010. Seplat West also includes Seplat’s 40% interest in Pillar Oil operated Umuseti field, in Oil Prospecting Lease (OPL) 283.

Chima Njoku and Okechukwu Mba have been Managing Directors of subsidiary companies before the new organizational structure. Njoku had been MD/CEO, since March 2020, of Elcrest Exploration & Production, a company which Seplat acquired about two years ago. Elcrest holds 45% in OML 40 and is the technical and financing partner of the Ubima marginal field in OML 17. Last February, Mba took over as managing director of the ANOH Gas Processing Company (AGPC) from Yetunde Taiwo, who was moved over to set up a new business unit.

Company spokesperson Chioma Nwachuku transforms from General Manager, Public Affairs, to Director of External Affairs and Sustainability, which in effect means that she is running a directorate.

Yetunde Taiwo, who was appointed General Manager New Energy last February, is now Director of New Energy.

Eleanor Adaralegbe, who was General Manager Finance, is now Vice President Finance.

An entirely new hire is Alasdair Mackenzie, as Director, Strategy & Business Development.

All of these officers, though, are on the second level of the organogram, below a four man committee which includes Roger Brown himself as CEO, Emeka Onwuka as Chief Financial Officer (CFO), Effiong Okon, Operations Director and Gary Thomson, Technical Director. Brown, Onwuka and Okon  are all on the company’s board, as executive directors.

Mackenzie joined Seplat Energy from Tullow Oil, where he was Group Head of Commercial, Planning and Tax. But it was his tenure as Tullow’s Commercial & M&A Manager which Mr. Brown found most fitting to his strategy. Mackenzie, who operates out of London, is in charge of the new ventues that Seplat is exploring the most ambitious of which is discussion to buy into four acreages being divested by an oil major

Seplat West’s Managing Director and Seplat East’s Managing Director, as well as Director Energy, are pivotal to the company’s new way of being. They are all running strategic business units, which are set up for transparent profit or loss accountabilities..

All of these leaders have had positions of increasing responsibility over the last 10 years.

Olatunde had been Seplat’s GM, Eastern Assets Operations since 2014, when he joined the company from Conoil Producing, where he was GM, Exploration & Production, a position he took after he was promoted from Group Head, Geosciences. Folorunso was promoted from Principal Production Technologist in May 2014 and he has moved up rapidly, becoming Production Operations Manager in May 2016, and GM Corporate Prod. Operations a month after, after which he was made GM Western Asset-1 in January 2020, taking over from Njoku, who become the first Seplat appointed CEO of Elcrest after the acquisition.

But it is through Ms. Taiwo’s portfolio that Seplat Energy wants to test the future. The New Energy unit involves the increase of gas products to be monetised in the form of LPG, CNG and other gas derivatives, with opportunity framing in the renewable energy space, all utilisable  in the local market.  Taiwo worked for BG as Economics manager after 15 years as reservoir engineer, then planning advisor at Chevron, before she showed up at Seplat in May 2011 as head of planning and economics. She joined NNPC, the state hydrocarbon company, in 2013, as General Manager, Planning at NAPIMS, the Investment arm. She was appointed head of Gas Business when she returned to Seplat in 2015 and then promoted MD, AGPC.

The appointment of Meg O’Neill as Woodside’s new chief executive means she will be superintending the creation of a “Big Australian” company from the proposed merger of Woodside with BHP’s petroleum division.

She will also see to the company’s achievement of first oil in Senegal, scheduled for 2023.

The merged company will be in the top 10 of independent global oil and gas producers, in the opinion of Keith Pitt, Australia’s Resources Minister.

“Having dealt with Ms. O’Neil over the past few months since her appointment as interim CEO of Woodside, I am confident she is the right person to lead the new Woodside through the challenges of a merger of this size and complexity,” Mr. Pitt says, in a congratulatory statement.

O’Neill was appointed on August 17, 2021, succeeding Peter Coleman, who retired from Woodside, Australia’s largest E&P company, in June 2021.

She joined Woodside in May 2018 as chief operations officer. In October 2019, she became executive vice president development, and in August 2020, assumed responsibility for marketing.

Prior to joining Woodside, O’Neill held senior technical and business positions at ExxonMobil including assignments in Indonesia, Norway, Canada, and the US, and regional roles responsible for Asia/Pacific and Africa.

She holds dual Bachelor’s degrees in Ocean Engineering and Chemical Engineering and a Master Degree in Ocean Systems Management from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.