Tinubu’s nephew-owned Oando, two others shortlisted to acquire Trinidad’s refinery

Nigeria’s oil company, Oando Plc owned by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s nephew, Wale Tinubu, has been shortlisted by the Trinidadian government as one of three final bidders to take over the country’s state-owned refinery, Petrotrin.

The Trinidadian Finance Minister, Colm Imbert, disclosed this during a recent presentation of its national budget.

The defunct company is a state-owned oil company in Trinidad and Tobago.

He noted that among the initial 10 proposals, three companies had made the final shortlist including, CRO Consortium, a consortium of three Trinidadian companies, INCA Energy, an American company, and Nigeria’s Oando Plc.

According to available data, the bidding process began in February 2024, when the government of Trinidad and Tobago enlisted the services of US-based Scotia Capital to spearhead the refinery’s procurement by inviting “expressions of interest.”

Imbert noted, “A formal selective Request for Proposals process will now be initiated to determine the winner among these three companies, to restart the refinery, if found feasible.”

He explained that the proposals received were evaluated based on five criteria which were, a clear restart plan and timeline by the proposing company.

Nigeria imports petroleum products from Trinidad and Tobago, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics.

The development comes at the same time Nigeria’s state-owned Portharcourt, Warri and Kaduna remain moribund for years.

This comes as the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited failed to kick off petroleum production in the Portharcourt refinery after several missed deadlines.