President Bola Tinubu, has appointed Bashir Bayo Ojulari, as the new Group Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited with a mandate to drive portfolio review and value maximization.
A statement by the Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, on Wednesday titled, ‘President Tinubu reconstitutes NNPC limited board, appoints new Chairman, Group CEO’ added that Tinubu, invoking the powers granted under Section 59, subsection 2 of the Petroleum Industry Act, 2021, also sacked Mele Kyari as the NNPCL GMD.
The President also dissolved the company’s board, including its chairman, Pius Akinyelure, and reconsitutued an 11-member board.
According to Onanuga, Ojulari’s appointment takes effect on April 2, 2025.
The President in appointing Ojulari, also handed out an immediate action plan to the new board: to conduct a strategic portfolio review of NNPC-operated and Joint Venture Assets to ensure alignment with value maximisation objectives
Ojulari, an indigene of Kwara State, is a seasoned Nigerian engineer with expertise in petroleum, process, and production engineering.
He first joined Shell in November 1991 as an Associate Production Technologist at Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC)
Ojulari had worked full-time at global oil giant, Shell, for over 24 years, rising to become the Managing Director of Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Company (SNEPCo) in November 2015, a position he held until July 2021.
He first joined Shell in November 1991 as an Associate Production Technologist at Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC), after he left Elf Petroleum Nigeria as a Fields and Process Engineer. He worked at Elf as a fresh graduate from September 1989 to October 1991.
Ojulari joined Elf after graduating from Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, where he studied Mechanical Engineering between 1985 and 1989.
After joining Shell in 1991, he rose to become a member of the Integrated Studies Team at Shell headquarters in the Netherlands in June 1994, a position he held till October 1995.
Between April 1997 and November 1999, he was the Head Planning Economics and Budgeting at SPDC Nigeria, from where he rose to become the Asset Leader and Head Production Technologist at Shell in Oman from December 1999 to September 2003.
He became the Sub-Saharan Africa Regional Planner at Shell headquarters in October 2003 and held the position till December 2004.
From January 2005 to October 2008, he was the Manager, Corporate Planning and Strategy at SPDC Nigeria during which time he also briefly held the position of Asset Production Technologist from November 2006 to March 2007.
At Shell, he remained in Nigeria from then on, becoming the Manager, Asset Development (Onshore and Shallow Water) SPDC Nigeria from October 2008 to October 2010.
From January 2010 to October 2015, he was the Development Director at SPDC Nigeria, after which he rose to become the Managing Director of SNEPCo from November 2015 to July 2021 when he left the
He established the BAT Advisory and Energy Company Nigeria Ltd in September 2021 and served as its board chairman. One of the main tasks of the company was to provide consultancy services to firms in the oil and gas/energy sector.
He was appointed the Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Renaissance Africa Energy Company in January 2024, a position he held until his new appointment as NNPC chief. He only announced his appointment at Renaissance Africa on LinkedIn about a week ago, saying, “It’s been a while since I started my role at Renaissance Africa Energy Company as a Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Office, but I wanted to share this update with everyone.”
He joined Renaissance at a time when the company was concluding its purchase of a Shell asset in Nigeria.
“Renaissance now controls SPDC’s 30 per cent stake in the SPDC JV, an unincorporated joint venture with the government-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (55%), Total Exploration and Production Nigeria Ltd (10%) and Agip Energy and Natural Resources (Nigeria) Limited (5%),” Shell announced.
