Access Bank ventures into oil and gas

Mr Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede, a former Managing Director of Access Bank, has expressed happiness with the bank’s current investments in the oil and gas sector.

Aig-Imoukhuede made this known as a guest speaker at the KPMG Alumni cocktail session on Thursday in Lagos titled “Leader, Growth and Succession’’.

He said the bank had expanded its investment into oil and gas sector and was currently supporting indigenous companies that acquired oil blocks from the multi-nationals.

Aig-Imoukhuede said that the bank was focusing on huge business in local companies acquiring International Oil Companies’ fields with the hope of translating to upstream operations.

“We are currently, largely focusing on financing the indigenous oil and gas players working towards moving to the upstream operations.

“It is a good business, but the indigenous has to learn from the multi-national business ideology.

“It is our prayer that militancy should not come back in the Niger Delta because it will threatened business investment in oil and gas,’’ he said.

Aig-Imoukhuede called on financial institutions to invest and tap into the upstream operations in the sector.

According to him, the successes recorded by Nigerian indigenous companies and the limitless opportunities provided by the Nigerian Content Act cannot be overemphasis.

He said that Access Bank had financed some of the biggest deals in the upstream sector some years ago.

Aig-Imoukhuede, who also spoke on power sector, lauded the Federal Government’s privatisation process.

He said that the sector would in the long run be a profitable sector to investors despite its challenges in the area of gas and transmission.

“`Power sector is going to get rough initially, but is going to be a profitable sector at long run.

“ The sector is a very big investment at long run to investors, but there will be more patients and sacrifice to uphold power sector investment by investors,’’ Aig-Imoukhuede said.

He advised organisations and business managers to involve in quality leadership role in moving their organisations forward.

Aig-Imoukhuede also advised that every leader should be able to have a proficient succession plan at the early stage of his or her business career for smooth transition. (NAN)