Tony Elumelu’s Heirs Energies Revives OML 17, Sets Sights on 100,000 b/d

Heirs Energies Ltd., founded by Nigerian businessman Tony Elumelu, says it has turned OML 17 from a laggard into a workhorse, reactivating more than 100 dormant wells and pushing terminal delivery to roughly 95%–100%. The company laid out the turnaround on Aug. 28 at a media briefing, adding that a 100,000-barrel-a-day production target is now firmly in view.

Elumelu’s upstream arm—part of his Heirs Holdings conglomerate and sole operator of OML 17 in the Niger Delta—moved quickly after taking control. Within the first 100 days, output was ramped and dozens of shut-in wells were brought back. “When we took over, fewer than 30 wells were flowing,” Chief Executive Officer Osa Igiehon said. “We’ve since revived around 40 in the early phase alone, and one well that sat idle for 37 years came back online last week.”

That restart was less about engineering and more about people. Igiehon said the long-shut well had no critical technical faults; it was stranded by security and community issues that the operator resolved through engagement and longer-term agreements. It’s a window into how Elumelu’s team says it is running the asset: fix the basics, de-risk the environment, and then spend capital where it actually moves the needle.

The operational gains are showing up at the terminal. Executive Director and Chief Financial Officer Sam Nwanze said OML 17 has swung from persistent losses to 95%–100% terminal delivery, a sharp break from a period when theft and infrastructure bottlenecks weighed on realized volumes. The company has simultaneously leaned into domestic gas, commissioning the Agbada non-associated gas plant and scaling supply to more than 100 million standard cubic feet per day.

“In the East, we’re now the largest supplier of domestic gas,” Igiehon said. “We feed four power plants and a swath of industrial customers around Port Harcourt. None of that gas is for export—everything is directed to the local market.” That positioning ties to Elumelu’s long-standing “Africapitalism” pitch: build competitive businesses that also widen access to power and jobs.

The production ambition—100,000 barrels a day—won’t come easy. Management flagged a methodical path: more well re-entries, selective new drilling, facility debottlenecking, and continued security hardening along evacuation routes. The early surge came from tackling obvious shut-ins; sustaining growth will depend on project execution and reliability, areas where Nigerian operators have often struggled.

Still, the company’s framing is clear. OML 17, once seen as an underperformer dogged by losses and leaks, is now being presented as a scalable hub with oil and gas optionality. If Heirs can keep terminal delivery near current levels, each incremental barrel lifted has a better chance of reaching market—critical for margins and cash flow.