Tony Elumelu, founder of Heirs Energies, says Nigeria must ramp up oil production to generate revenue for economic diversification.
Speaking at the Heirs Enegies leadership forum on Thursday in Abuja, Elumelu emphasised the need for massive investment in oil and gas to power the country’s industries and ensure energy security.
“We cannot industrialise Africa, Nigeria, without improving access to energy and electricity in particular,” Elumelu said.
“Heirs Energies was founded because energy investment is critical—it is what we need. We acquired OML 17 from Shell about four or five years ago.
“Today, we produce over 53,000 barrels of oil daily, and we are one of the leading indigenous oil and gas producers in Nigeria.”
Elumelu, also the group chairman of Heirs Holdings, said under former President Muhammadu Buhari, Nigeria’s oil output dropped to less than 1 million barrels per day (bpd).
“We are happy that under the current Tinubu administration, in general, we produce 1.8 million barrels of oil a day. But we are not satisfied with that figure,” he said.
“We want to take it to over 2 million. We know that we need oil money to diversify Nigeria away from oil. And we need to have the money to help develop our country.”
However, the entrepreneur acknowledged the challenges facing the power sector, particularly gas supply constraints limiting electricity generation.
“Transcorp is the leading power-generating company in Nigeria with an installed capacity of 2,000 megawatts, but we are constrained by gas,” he said.
“Our goal is to increase gas production in Nigeria as we increase oil production. Gas will help industries to produce and enable power companies like Transcorp to generate more electricity.”
Speaking on his company’s production plans, Elumelu disclosed that Heirs Energies is expanding its oil output capacity to reach 100,000 bpd in the coming years.
“What is more important is to have that raw material, which I’m happy that we have today,” he said.
“Even though 53,000 barrels is not enough, we want to take it to 100,000 barrels. That’s why we are meeting here for three days, strategizing how we can achieve this.
“And with this conversation, the policymakers and industry leaders are discussing how we can coalesce and cooperate, and collaborate, which we need in this sector. We think we can do more. And yes, ultimately we will do so.”
The businessman expressed strong optimism that Heirs can achieve the target with the incentives provided by President Bola Tinubu’s administration and the executive orders he has signed.
He noted that significant changes have taken place in Nigeria’s oil and gas sector over the past 12 months.
On February 13, the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) said Nigeria’s average daily crude oil production increased significantly to 1.53 million barrels per day (bpd) in January.
The development was the first time Nigeria met the oil cartel’s production quota of 1.5 million bpd since it was set — for the 2024 period — at OPEC’s ministerial meeting on November 30, 2023.
