Wale Tinubu has the oil. Now Oando needs the cash

The M.T. Carolina was built in 1945 and, even on a good day, could barely make five knots. When the tide turned, Wale Tinubu recalls, it sometimes travelled backwards.

He knows because he was aboard the ageing tanker in the early 1990s, supplying diesel to fishing trawlers off Nigeria’s coast. The journey taught him that oil explorers paid better than fishermen.

After two runs, he discovered that seismic survey crews prospecting for deepwater oil would pay about five times as much for the same fuel. Tinubu switched customers. One ship became seven.

That instinct helped Tinubu build Oando, one of Nigeria’s largest indigenous energy groups. But the next stage will test a different skill: raising enough capital to exploit the reserves it has accumulated.

From trader to owner

Ocean & Oil, founded by Tinubu and his partners in 1994, began in shipping and petroleum trading. By 2000 it had taken a controlling stake in Unipetrol, the former Esso business. In 2002 it acquired Agip’s Nigerian fuel-marketing operation. The businesses were merged and rebranded Oando.

His pattern was to build scale, then sell or pivot. After growing a sprawling retail business, he divested control. He also built a gas-distribution pipeline business before selling that, too. He recalls the gas transaction as among his most profitable.

The more consequential leap was upstream. In July 2014, Oando completed its $1.5bn purchase of ConocoPhillips’ Nigerian oil and gas business. A decade later it paid $783m for Eni’s Nigerian Agip Oil Company, taking its participating interest in four onshore blocks from 20% to 40% and acquiring operatorship.

For Tinubu, these deals transformed Oando from an investor into an operator.

Not every bet worked. Early in Seplat’s history, its founders Austin Avuru and A.B.C. Orjiako approached Tinubu about becoming the indigenous majority partner. He wanted the venture folded into Oando; they wanted an independent company. The deal collapsed.

“Probably the biggest mistake of my career,” he says.

The local advantage

Owning the fields is only half the argument. Tinubu believes Nigerian operators have an advantage over international groups in the Niger Delta, where theft, sabotage and tense relations with host communities have repeatedly disrupted production.

“This is home to us,” he says. Rather than await government protection, Oando deals directly with communities and manages local security itself. He claims security incidents across its blocks have fallen by about 95%, a figure that could not be independently confirmed.

He argues that the difference goes beyond government surveillance contracts. Local operators must negotiate “ward by ward, village by village, community by community”.

Oando has acquired more than acreage. It now operates wells, drilling programmes, processing facilities and pipelines that it once watched international partners run. “We can prospect for oil, explore for oil, drill production wells,” Tinubu says, describing an operation that reaches from exploration to market.

The cost of expansion

The price has been steep. At the end of June 2026, Oando carried net debt of ₦2.16trn ($1.6bn). Its first-half revenue grew by 20%, and production averaged 42,789 barrels of oil equivalent a day. Yet it recorded a ₦32.84bn pre-tax loss. A large tax credit helped turn that into a ₦68.56bn after-tax profit.

Tinubu is forthright about the sequencing. “We grew the business with debt intentionally,” he says. First came reserves, then operatorship, then integration. Oando cut staffing by roughly 30% as it absorbed the enlarged business.

He estimates that, out of about $300m generated annually, some $190m goes on interest. “The bulk of our cash goes towards servicing debt,” he says. He wants fresh equity, less debt and more drilling. The group wants to lift output towards 100,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day within five years, while building from two working rigs to seven.

There is another test: governance. In 2019, Nigeria’s Securities and Exchange Commission reported serious financial-reporting and board-oversight failings at Oando. The company challenged the regulator’s sanctions before reaching a settlement in 2021, without admitting or denying liability, and undertaking governance improvements.

Tinubu is also President Bola Tinubu’s nephew, an obvious source of questions as the government reshapes Nigeria’s oil industry. He insists Oando grew long before his uncle became president, including years when his uncle’s party was in federal opposition, and that the company receives only routine regulatory approvals. He points to its public listing and independent board as safeguards. Investors will ultimately judge both claims by performance and disclosure.

The next frontier

Expansion beyond Nigeria has begun. Oando has a 45% interest and operatorship in Angola’s onshore Block KON 13, where exploration work is still at an early stage. Tinubu is also studying battery metals and future investment in gas-based petrochemicals. He once weighed building a refinery at Lekki but decided upstream offered the better return on his attention and capital.

His grander ambition lies offshore. Nigerian companies, he argues, can already assemble the engineers and contractors to run a multibillion-dollar deepwater development. “The issue is capital,” he says. He reckons Oando could be ready to attempt one in about seven years.

The man who once steered a wheezing tanker out to crews searching for deepwater oil now wants his company to develop such fields itself. Whether he gets there will depend less on spotting the next opportunity than on making the last acquisitions pay.

(The Africa Report)