Electricity: Otedola To Invest $1b In Geregu

Billionaire oil tycoon Femi Otedola has now become a big player in the nation’s burgeoning power generation sector.

Independent sources informed the magazine that the business man “will raise his investment in the sector to over one billion naira in the next few years,” few hours after he announced the sale of Forte Oil Plc and final his exit from the oil marketing business.

Otedola had in 2018, invested $350 million in a power generation company known as Geregu Power plc.

The company was acquired in 2013 through a subsidiary of Forte Oil Plc, Amperion Power Distribution Company Limited.

The investment is to further raise the power generation in line with the Federal Government’s Power Sector Recovery Program in Nigeria, Otedola said at the time.

In 2017, Otedola invested another $94 million in the power generation plant with a target to raise its generation capacity from 414 megawatts to 434 megawatts of electricity.

From all indications, the Lagos born businessman will no longer play active role in the downstream petroleum sector, which he dominated for many years after buying out defunct African Petroleum Plc, AP many years ago.

AP later became Forte Oil, one of the biggest players in the diesel marketing across Nigeria.

The business magnate announced his divestment from the oil sector on Wednesday, after revealing that he has sold all his interests in Forte oil.

While speaking on the issue, the businessman whose company once took it upon itself to sell kerosene to Nigerians directly following the acute scarcity of the product at the time, said he has come a long way in the oil business and that it was time to move on to another sector.

“A few years ago, my team and I embarked on an arduous task of transforming a moribund marketing business, African Petroleum Plc( formerly British Petroluem ) into Forte oil Plc, a leading integrated solutions provider with solid footprints in downstream petroleum marketing, upstream services and power generation and one in which we built intrinsic value to the benefit of our shareholders, Otedola said.

Having made immense contribution to the petroleum sector therefore, it’s time to break new grounds in the burgeoning power sector “in line with my principle of business focus, we have divested from our marketing upstream business and shall from now on focus and consolidate on the gains of our power generation business , Geregu Power Plc,” he said.

Adding that “we wish our successors the very best and urge them to build on our legacies which have been established since 1964.”

According to sources close to the businessman, the investment in the power company will be raised to a billion dollars in the next few years.