Revealed: Bigwigs Behind Chappal Energies, New Owners of TotalEnergies’ $860m Assets

Chappal Energies, a leading energy company, has acquired a minority share in TotalEnergies’s Nigerian onshore joint venture assets for $860 million.

The new purchase by Chappal Energies, a company registered in Mauritius in 2022, includes an interest in 15 licences producing mostly oil, with production netting Total of 14,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day in 2023.

This deal includes three additional licenses that produce mostly gas and currently account for 40 percent of TotalEnergies’ Nigeria LNG gas supply.

A latest findings showed Chappal Energies, a consortium known for its discreet approach in the industry is led by William Higgs (chairman), Adesola Oyinlola (director), Ufoma Immanuel (director), and Victor Imevbore (director).

Further findings showed these four silent titans focus on investments in deep-value and distressed brownfield upstream assets in the Niger Delta region.

William Higgs is the chairman of Chappal Energies.

He was chief executive officer of London-based Mediterranean Oil and Gas in 2014, where he oversaw the successful sale of the company.

Higgs has held various executive roles, including CEO and chief operating officer (COO) at Genel Energy Plc, COO at Ophir Energy PLC, and senior positions at Saudi Arabian Chevron and Chevron US.

Adesola Oyinlola is one of the directors at Chappal Energies. Oyinlola holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting from the University of Ghana and an MBA from Stanford University.

With 30 years in the oil and gas industry, he has extensive experience with Schlumberger Group, where he served in numerous executive roles globally, including managing director for Nigeria & Gulf of Guinea and vice president and group treasurer.

He retired in 2015 as global head of sustainability for Schlumberger.

Ufoma Immanuel has a background in investment banking and private equity, working in the UK and the Middle East before moving into Nigeria’s oil and gas sector.

He was head of corporate finance and strategy at Eroton Exploration and Production, managing a $1.105 billion acquisition.

He also founded Energy Link Infrastructure (ELI), a $200 million venture for alternative crude oil evacuation systems. Ufoma left ELI and founded Chappal Energies in 2020.

Victor Imevbore is a director at Chappal Energies and the founder and managing director of Environmental Resource Managers Limited (ERML), a leading consultancy in regulatory and environmental, social, and governance issues in the oil and gas sector.

Imevbore, a petroleum engineer, has authored over 100 technical reports, including the Niger Delta Human Development Report for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

Further findings showed Chappal Energies had come up among the top three bidders of two of the most prized upstream assets up for grabs in the Nigerian market in the last four years.

For instance, Austin Avuru, former CEO of Seplat Energies, was chair of Chappal Petroleum Development (Not Chappal Energies), created in 2020, made it to being the reserve bidder for the Nigerian shallow-water oil blocks that ExxonMobil agreed to sell to Seplat Energies in February 2022.

Chappal Petroleum Development Company is currently inactive as Avuru is currently involved with a different consortium (Platform Petroleum/Pillar Oil).

Chappal Petroleum Development’s founders, Ufoma Immanuel and Victor Imevbore, left in 2022. They are currently directors of Chappal Energies.

The Chappal brand, whether it be Chappal Petroleum Development or Chappal Energies, has shown that it could handily win a keenly competed, prized upstream asset bid, in Nigeria.