Born on the 25^th June 1951 at Olowogbowo in Lagos, Lagos State, Engr. Afolabi Oladele attended Government College Ibadan, where he obtained a 9-aggregate Division 1 WASC in December 1968. Thereafter he gained admission to the University of Ife and obtained a Second Class Upper BSc degree in Chemical Engineering in 1974.

In June 1975, he joined the Ministry of Mines and Power as a petroleum engineer-in-training. Under the supervision of Chief J. J. Akpieyi, he began a 2-year training program that seconded him to the old Port Harcourt Refinery and subsequently to Total Nigeria, Total International and the French Petroleum Institute in Ruel Malmaison, France. He completed a graduate program in Petroleum Economics and subsequently worked at the Raffinerie De Provence in La Mede France and at the Total Headquarters in Paris understudying Planning Supply and Distribution of Petroleum Products in large markets.

Returning to in 1977 as Petroleum Engineer Grade 1 he began a career marked with the following achievements:

The development of the first demand forecasting model. The application of the predictive formula stopped the underestimation of petroleum products importation into the country. This won him the Managing Director’s Merit Award;

He introduced products yield based valuation of Nigerian crude oils the application of which led to the recovery of $80m from Ashland petroleum in 1979. This was the seed money for the construction of the new Port Harcourt Refinery;

On account of his analytical skills, he was seconded as Nigeria’s member of the multi-disciplinary OPEC countries’ team of experts that developed an interactive model for OPEC at the University Of Southern California. The model was used to assess crude oil prices that would prevent coal substituting crude oil;

As Senior Petroleum Engineer upon his return from this assignment in 1983 and as the Ministry’s lead working with the accounting firm of S.S. Afemikhe & Co, they developed the new Petroleum Equalization Fund a self-balancing system  that eliminated government subsidising haulage payments post completion of the new pipeline and depots system;

As Planning Manager in the upstream arm of re-organised NNPC he led the team that revised the MOU with E&P Companies. The revised MOU reversed the nation’s declining oil exploration activities and oil reserves. He introduced a return based system that admitted only the most profitable fields for development into the nation’s annual budget thus improving earnings to the country. He was promoted to General Manager Operations becoming the youngest member of the NNPC Operating Board at the age of 39;

As General Manager and Group General Manager NAPIMS in 1990-96, he led negotiations of the new Joint Operating Agreements with the E&P Companies and supervised the largest expansion in the nations oil production capacity in recent history. This period marked the beginning of the deep offshore discoveries that are now the mainstay of nations production capacity; He was promoted to Group Executive Director Refineries and Petrochemicals Operations in 1996, a position from which he retired in June 1999. He has since joined African Capital Alliance the leading private equity firm in Nigeria and is currently a partner.

SPECIALIZATIONS

• Oil & Gas Engineering and Marketing