By Ikenna Omeje
Heirs Oil & Gas (HHOG) has appointed a former Vice President of the Royal Dutch Shell, Osayande Igiehon as its Chief Executive Officer, effective May 4, 2021.
A statement by the company stated that Igiehon who was previously a Vice-President at Royal Dutch Shell in the Hague, Netherlands, brings over twenty-seven years of experience and expertise in the oil and gas sector with Shell, where he held a series of senior management positions. According to the statement, Igiehon was also previously Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Shell Gabon, where he led the successful turnaround of the operational, safety and financial performance.
Heirs Oil and Gas also announced the appointment of Tony Elumelu, the Chairman of Heirs Holdings, the United Bank for Africa (UBA), Transnational Corporation of Nigeria (Transcorp), and Founder of the Tony Elumelu Foundation; Sally Udoma who previously served as general counsel for Chevron Europe, Eurasia, and the Middle East Exploration and Production; and Anil Dua, a founding partner at Gateway Partners Limited; as Non-Executive Board members.
Others are Ahmadu Kida Musa who previously served as Deputy Managing Director of Total Exploration and Production Nigeria Limited; Stanley Lawson who currently serves on the board of Transnational Corporation of Nigeria Plc; and Samuel Nwanze who is the Chief Finance Officer at Heirs Oil and Gas.
Commenting on his appointment, Igiehon stated: “HHOG represents an extraordinary opportunity, to create Africa’s first true integrated energy company, with a mission to ensure that Africa’s natural resources are directed toward value creation in Africa, powered by sustainable, robust and abundant African energy. I am excited to join the Heirs Oil and Gas leadership team and look forward to the opportunity to transform the energy sector, purposefully address Africa’s energy needs and improve the lives of people across Africa.”
On his part, the Chairman of the Board, Tony Elumelu, stated: “I am delighted to welcome our new board members. We are building a role model institution for African businesses and our investment in human capital is a further strong demonstration of our intent. The regional and global expertise of our board members will serve to further drive value creation to our continent, as we execute our goal of becoming Africa’s largest, indigenous, integrated, energy company.”
Heirs Holdings Limited’s (HH) portfolio company, HHOG, completed the acquisition of OML17 in January 2021, in one of the largest oil and gas financings in Africa in more than a decade, with a financing component of US$1.1 billion. The transaction represents a further implementation of the HH Group strategy of creating the leading integrated energy business in Africa. Through a series of strategic portfolio holdings, HH is executing this strategy. Most recently, affiliate company, Transcorp made a US$300 million acquisition of Afam Power, increasing the Group’s installed electricity generating capacity to 2,000MW.
