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By Kunle Odusola-Stevenson, Lagos

When Lucky Aiyedatiwa, Governor of Ondo state, the hydrocarbon rich subnational jurisdiction in Nigeria’s south west, announced the $50Billion Sunshine Infrastructure Joint Venture (JV) on November 5, 2025, his the state was projected as the country’s next industrial powerhouse. The plan — a 500,000-barrels-per-day refinery and a 1,471-hectare Free Trade Zone in Ilaje — was hailed as a turning point for job creation, investment, and energy independence.

The consortium, featuring Backbone Infrastructure Nigeria Limited (BINL), MJ Care Investment Finance, China Harbour, and Honeywell OUP, claimed to be backed by NEFEX Holdings Limited (Canada) through its Nigerian subsidiary, Nefex Petro Line Ltd.

But a deeper interrogation of the deal using a structured risk framework raises fundamental questions about its credibility. New corporate filings in the United Kingdom, linked to the same individuals behind NEFEX, now cast additional doubt on the substance of this multi-billion-dollar narrative.

Corporate and Legal Fragility

At the core of the deal is NEFEX Holdings, a company incorporated in February 2025 — barely nine months before the announcement. The firm has no operational history, no audited accounts, and no verifiable track record in infrastructure or energy development. Yet, by July 2025, it was already signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Ondo State, claiming to have “secured” tens of billions in funding.

Records from Companies House UK revealed the incorporation of Supreme International Monetary and Credit Organization Limited (Company No. 16716243), registered in London on  September 15, 2025, with just £100 in share capital. Its directors — Dr. Navid Zaheri (Omani), Mr. Farhad Salehi (Canadian), Mr. Eghbal Kord Jamshidi, and Mr. Saeed Zaheri — are the same individuals identified in the NEFEX structure.

“The Ondo refinery deal reflects Nigeria’s ongoing development paradox: a nation eager for transformative capital yet chronically vulnerable to speculative partnerships. Subnational governments, often excluded from federal funding pipelines, have grown dependent on MoU diplomacy — signing ambitious deals that seldom mature into tangible assets.”

Dr. Zaheri, listed as both Chairperson and Person with Significant Control (PSC), holds 95% of shares and over 75% of voting rights. The company’s address — 20–22 Wenlock Road, London N1 7GU — is a well-known shared virtual office used by hundreds of newly formed entities.

With no operational base, employees, or financial statements, the pattern is unmistakable: a network of thinly capitalised, multi-jurisdictional companies designed to appear global, yet offering little substance.

Cross-Border and Transparency Gaps

The Sunshine JV spans four regulatory jurisdictions — Nigeria, Canada, Oman, and the United Kingdom — yet none provide a transparent financial trail. NEFEX lists a Canadian registration, operates via a Swiss phone line, and is directed primarily by Omani nationals. Its supposed UK affiliate, Supreme International Monetary and Credit Organization Ltd, claims expertise in credit, investment, and advisory services, but offers no evidence of operational activity.

Such opacity creates severe cross-border enforcement risks. Should disputes or defaults occur, the Nigerian government — or Ondo State taxpayers — would face a legal maze with little practical recourse. Despite promises of “transparency,” no escrow accounts, proof of funds, or letters of credit have been presented publicly.

People and Reputation Risks

The leadership of the consortium adds more symbolism than substance.

Ken Nnamani, former Senate President and JV Chairman, lends political stature but no technical experience in energy or project finance.

Henry Owonka, the JV’s Managing Director, projects confidence and claims “consistent engagement” with ONDIPA, but no record of previous infrastructure delivery exists.

Wale Adekola of BINL touts NEFEX’s “global financing network,” yet no major financial institution or regulator has publicly endorsed the arrangement.

Online discourse around the project — from Tribune Online, Leadership, and New Telegraph — has largely replicated government press releases without independent scrutiny, reinforcing the perception of a media-driven announcement rather than a bankable transaction.

Financial Implausibility

The numbers alone raise eyebrows. A $50Billion investment claim — equivalent to Nigeria’s entire federal budget — from an entity less than a year old, without bank references or audited accounts, strains credulity.

Project valuations have shifted repeatedly: from $15Billion to $30Billion, and now to $50Billion, justified vaguely as including “community programmes.” Such valuation inflation suggests an effort to boost optics rather than disclose actual financing.

Moreover, NEFEX and its UK counterpart list a combined share capital of only £100, offering no evidence of credit lines, guarantees, or institutional backers. Even their promised Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) pledges — youth empowerment, healthcare, and skills development — lack any contractual or financial commitments.

Regulatory and Compliance Exposure

While neither NEFEX nor its UK affiliate appears on sanctions lists, both structures raise classic AML (Anti-Money Laundering) and PEP (Politically Exposed Persons) red flags — cross-border ownership, rapid incorporation, and political association.

Environmental, local content, and host community requirements — including EIA, NCDMB clearance, and community consent — remain conspicuously absent. While the Olugbo of Ugbo Kingdom has reportedly been briefed, there is no public evidence of a signed agreement ensuring local benefit-sharing or environmental protection.

A Mirror of Nigeria’s Investment Dilemma

The Ondo refinery deal reflects Nigeria’s ongoing development paradox: a nation eager for transformative capital yet chronically vulnerable to speculative partnerships. Subnational governments, often excluded from federal funding pipelines, have grown dependent on MoU diplomacy — signing ambitious deals that seldom mature into tangible assets.

Governor Aiyedatiwa’s intent to industrialise Ondo is commendable. However, development cannot be built on press releases and ceremonial signings. True progress requires certified funding proofs, phased milestones, third-party audits, and transparent accountability mechanisms.

Still, the initiative demonstrates a growing assertiveness of Nigerian states seeking economic autonomy. If properly managed, Ondo’s ambition could inspire a more competitive subnational investment culture. But ambition must be grounded in verification, not spectacle.

Conclusion: Between Vision and Verification

The Ondo refinery project stands at a crossroads between vision and verification. On paper, it promises thousands of jobs, exports, and industrial rebirth. In reality, it rests on the untested foundations of recently incorporated entities with no proven financial capacity.

The discovery of Supreme International Monetary and Credit Organization Ltd in London — tied directly to NEFEX directors — deepens  cconcerns about the authenticity of the claimed funding.

Before a single spade of sand is turned, Ondo State must demand:

• Certified funding documentation and escrow validation,
• Independent verification by reputable financial auditors, and
• Public disclosure of beneficial ownership and governance structures.

Economic transformation is not achieved by rhetoric — it is earned through verifiable execution. If the Sunshine State truly seeks to illuminate Nigeria’s path, it must do so not with billion-dollar headlines, but with evidence-based investment and accountable governance.

Only then will Ondo’s promise rise from projection to proof — and from political spectacle to genuine legacy.

Kunle Odusola-Stevenson is a Lagos-based Public Relations and Policy Communications professional focused on media, energy, and strategic investment narratives.

Nigeria’s state hydrocarbon company NNPC has junked the option of selling its four crude oil refining plants, located in three states of the country.

After reviewing the  report of the company-wide asset audit and portfolio benchmarking exercise, the NNPC’s incumbent, seven month old executive management and board of directors, decided it was best to get into partnership with companies who could run the facilities, while the NNPC takes a minority, but decisive seat.

The benchmarking exercise was conducted over the course of three months and submitted in September 2025.

In the last six weeks, the company, through the office of its Executive Vice President (EVP) Downstream,, has embarked on a global search for well-heeled and technically honed companies who could invest in, as well as run the refineries, with the NNPC taking a non-operating,  minority stake.

The previous position, now discarded, was  for the Nigerian state to fund the turn around maintenance and hand over the facilities to contracting firms to run, with NNPC having the oversight role.

Africa Oil+Gas Report learns that the negotiations have narrowed the number of likely investor/ technical partners to three, as of the week of November 3, 2025.

NNPC’s two refineries in Port Harcourt, in the east of the country, have been the main focus of the engagements with putative partners and, if it works, the proposal is to proceed to the two other refineries (the Warri Refinery in the mid-west and the Kaduna refinery in the north).

NNPC has -in the last six years- spent considerable energy on refurbishing the refineries, which have total nameplate capacity of 445,000Barrels Per Stream Day (BPSD). The facilities came on stream between 1965 and 1989, but have been largely non performing in the last 15years.

Between 2019 and mid-2023, Nigeria’s cabinet of ministers, known as the Federal Executive Council (FEC), approved a total of approximately $3Bllion for the phased rehabilitation of the four plants in Port Harcourt, Warri, and Kaduna refining complexes. But there have been significant commissioning hitches, despite the fact that the refurbishments have been lled by such bespoke contractors as Marie Technimont of Italy (Port Harcourt plants) and Daewoo Construction of Korea (Warri and Kaduna).

“With that kind of money spent, if we took the decision to sell, we would be stoned on the streets”, one ranking manager in the logistics unit declared. “It will be a massive destruction of value”.

In a recent Linked in post, NNPC’s Group CEO, Bayo Ojulari declared: “We are filled with determination! We are looking ahead with optimism to ensure our refineries operate effectively”.

NNPC sources (no one would speak on record, but this story benefits from interviews with several officials), acknowledge that the emergence of Dangote Refinery, with a name plate capacity of 650,000BPSD and (a lower limit of) gasoline output of 30Million litres a day, is a daunting competition, but Ojulari’s post declared that NNPC was continuing the work of refurbishing the refineries “to ensure  NNPC’s capacity to meet the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA)  requirement as the supplier of last resort for petroleum products”.

By Toyin Akinosho

Africa’s crude oil refining capacity has contracted, while the continent’s demand for petroleum products has surged, in the last 30 years.

The emergence of Dangote refinery has closed the gap a little, but imports will trend upwards in the foreseeable future, according to latest analyses of the S&P Global Commodity Insights.

Africa’s petroleum product demand equaled its refining capacity sometime around 2010, S&P’s data shows, but the refining capacity has plunged by 21% in 14 years, while the demand has soared. The Dangote refinery has only mitigated the widening refining gap by 9% in the last one year, the analysts’ data indicates.

S&P analysts, who conducted a semi conference featuring presentations to a wide spectrum of upstream and downstream players  in Lagos, Nigeria recently, have a dim view of the likely outcomes –and expected impact-of the several proposed refineries across Africa, including three in Angola, one in Uganda, several in Nigeria and a reported megaproject planned for Ghana.

“Pace of startups and closures is a key uncertainty”, for these projects, they said. “Demand has grown faster than supply, keeping refined products markets tight and margins high”.

The only country on the continent that could handle a Mega- refinery of the scale of Dangote is South Africa, the analysts said. “Such a Mega-refinery is likely a one-off”, they argued, but they were not quite forthcoming about whether such a project could ever make it again, from ideation to construction.

“African imports will increase as demand grows through 2050”, they conclude.

By Oluwatobi Odeyinka, Staff Reporter at Headquarters

South Africa’s petrochemical giant Sasol reports that its Natref refinery has made significant progress towards achieving compliance with Clean Fuels 2 regulation through the installation of its first low carbon boiler.

“The second low carbon boiler is expected to be commissioned by the end of this month”, the company said in its latest operational update.

South Africa’s Clean Fuels 2 regulation is a national fuel specification overhaul aimed at lowering the sulphur content in both gasoline and diesel to 10 parts per million (ppm) – a dramatic reduction from the current 50 ppm and 500 ppm limits in the country. Beyond sulphur, the new standards also: Limit benzene to 1% and Cap aromatics at 35%.

Sasol’s progress on low carbon boiler installation at Natref is a pointer to how far the country’s refining sector has come around to accept the inevitability of Clean Fuels. In March 2025. Astron Energy, a unit of global commodity trader Glencor, told visiting Parliamentarians at its100,000 barrels per day crude oil refinery in Cape Town, that it would invest up to $328Million to install new equipment and become compliant with Clean Fuels 2 regulation ahead of the 2027 deadline. The company’s top officials reportedly said that the foundations had already been laid at for a Gasoline Hydrotreating Process that will help bring petrol down to Euro 5 specifications”We will be supplying compliant fuels at the date asked of us,” Thabiet Booley, the chief executive told the lawmakers.

Astron Energy is one of only two remaining crude oil refineries operating in South Africa, a country whose domestic refining capacity has halved in a space of five years to around 358,000 barrels a day, following the closure and mothballing of the two largest crude refineries in Durban; the-180,000BOPD South African Petroleum Refineries (SAPREF) jointly owned by Shell and British Petroleum, and the 120,000BOPD Engen Refinery.

Africa’s most advanced economy imports around 75% of its liquid fuel needs, which was estimated at just over 19Bllion litres in 2023, according to industry body FIASA.

South Africa currently holds less than 21 days of petroleum fuels reserve, according to s Strategic Fuel Fund, a state agency tasked with securing strategic crude oil supplies at Saldanha’s storage terminal…

What is instructive about Sasol’s Natref progress towards achieving the Clean Fuel 2, standards is that the companies that constitute  the South African refining sector, including Sasol itself, were not enthusiastic about committing to investments in upgrade that the industry was required to make for Clean Fuel 2, when the regulations were announced in 2012.

Lamenting the likely inability of their refineries to recover the costs for making the necessary upgrades (in a regulated fuel price environment), they called for incentives from government to compensate for the investment.. The government refused. And the best incentive the companies were able to extract was a postponement of the CF2 implement deadline from 2017 to 2027.

In the 13 year period between the announcement of the regulations Shell, Engen, and British Petroleum had shut operations of their refineries and Chevron had sold its entire Southern African midstream and downstream petroleum assets, including the Astron refinery in Cape Town, to Swiss mining and commodity trading company, Glencore.

In June 2024, the state-owned Central Energy Fund, purchased the Shell/BP owned SAPREF refinery for R1 (five US cents) and announced plans to revamp the plant and increase its capacity. That has not happened.

Now, the news that Sasol’s Natref and Astron Energy (Glencore)’s Astron Refinery are in the process of upgrade to Clean Fuels 2 standards, mean that what remains of the country’s Refining actors have changed their disposition towards the new clean fuel specifications, from protest to assurance of compliance.

Support staff at NNPC’s Warri refinery, a 125,000Barrels of Oil Per Stream Day BPSD facility, have not been paid for four months, Africa Oil+Gas Report (AOGR) has learnt.

The Warri refinery is located in the western Niger Delta basin, in Nigeria’s mid-west.

Dafe Ighomitedo, the worker’s representative, told AOGR that they last received their pay for March 2025.

AOGR’s inquiry to NNPC Public Affairs Unit elicited no response.

The Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG), on behalf of the support staff, has issued a seven-day ultimatum to NNPC management to start talks, Ighomitedo continued.

Warri refinery was shut on January 25, 2025, having only restarted on December 30, 2024. NNPC said it had to carry out “necessary intervention works on select equipment, including field instruments that were impacting sustainable and steady operations”.

The company’s Group CEO, Bashir Bayo Ojulari, while addressing issues at a separate NNPC refinery on July 30, 2025, suggested that the Warri restart may have been “ill-informed and sub-commercial”. He had instituted a review of rehabilitation projects in NNPC refineries shortly after his appointment in April 2025. Warri saw the start of a $492Million quick-fix project in June 2022.

Casualised Warri refinery staff would not have supported the quick-fix project because of their poor terms of work, Ighomitedo told AOGR, “but in April 2022 NNPC management promised that when the refinery achieved a restart it would introduce an improved salary structure. NNPC management has not kept its promise of better pay since Warri’s restart in December 2024”, Ighomitedo continued.

NNPC refineries operated at less than 19% of their combined 445,000BOPD capacity between 2009–2019. Warri was shut in 2019 after several years of its operating losses and overhead costs attracting much criticism. NNPC responded to those criticisms partly through the casualisation of the Warri refinery workforce. Ighomitedo said that the support staff make up 69% of Warri’s workforce and have been protesting their low pay and lack of benefits since 2015.

A response from NNPC management to NUPENG is expected by 19 August 2025, Ighomitedo said.