Nigerian tycoon Ernest Azudialu is pumping more oil while owing lenders over $1 billion

Ernest Azudialu-Obiejesi says his group has lifted production from OML 42 using its own drilling rig, twelve days after paying $60 million to lenders pursuing him for more than $1 billion.

The Nestoil Group chairman said in a statement on Saturday, Aug. 29, that the Pathfinder 500, a wholly Nigerian-crewed rig operated through the group's Scorpio Drilling International unit, completed workover operations on two producing wells in the Niger Delta block without any health, safety or environment incident. The work added incremental production, he said, and the rig has since been demobilised to base.

He described the deployment as a milestone in the group's contribution to Nigeria's oil and gas industry, and said Nestoil would keep investing in drilling, workover and well-services infrastructure to sustain and grow output from the block. Scorpio, he added, will continue providing drilling services to the group and to third-party operators.

The production matters because of what is owed against it.

On Aug. 17 the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission announced that Nestoil had paid $60 million to its lenders under a structured repayment plan agreed at a meeting chaired by commission chairman Olanipekun Olukoyede. The EFCC had opened an investigation into what it called the alleged criminal aspects of transactions between Nestoil and the consortium, and what emerged was a payment schedule.

The consortium, led by FBNQuest Merchant Bank and First Trustees, put the outstanding total at $1,084,157,611.20 and 469.4 billion naira as of June. It says Azudialu-Obiejesi personally guaranteed further debts of more than 366.8 billion naira, $61.2 million, $152 million and 10.4 billion naira, owed to Access Bank, First Bank and Zenith Bank. He has disputed the basis and the scale of the claim throughout.

The case began on Oct. 22, 2025, when Justice Dehinde Dipeolu of the Federal High Court in Lagos granted an ex parte Mareva injunction freezing the assets, bank accounts and shareholdings of Nestoil, Neconde Energy, Azudialu-Obiejesi and his wife Nnenna, restraining dealings in $1,012,608,386.91 and 430,014,064,380.77 naira. A receiver and manager took possession of Nestoil Towers on Akin Adesola Street in Victoria Island and assumed control of Neconde's 45% interest in OML 42.

Neconde argued at the time that the orders had halted daily production of more than 40,000 barrels, that it was not indebted to the plaintiffs and was not party to the syndicated loan behind the suit, and that the receiver had not been registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission as required under company law.

The litigation since has produced rulings both sides have claimed. The Court of Appeal disqualified Wole Olanipekun and Muiz Banire from acting for the companies in January, holding that receivership had suspended the board's authority to appoint counsel. The Supreme Court reversed that in April, calling it a legal anomaly for the receiver's lawyers to also represent the companies. On June 1 the Supreme Court set aside the asset freeze, with Justice Stephen Jonah Adah holding that the Court of Appeal had exceeded its jurisdiction and criticising what he called a misuse of the judicial process.

The lenders responded within a week, calling the ruling at best a pyrrhic victory, noting that the Supreme Court had not removed the receiver and had not found Nestoil free of debt, and saying recovery had only just begun.

OML 42 has been the prize throughout. The block covers 814 square kilometres onshore in the western Delta, holds seven fields that have produced and five undeveloped discoveries, and carries 2P reserves of 600 million barrels. Production began in 1969 and peaked at about 250,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day in 1974, before the fields were shut in during early 2005 over security problems in the Niger Delta, when output stood at 50,000 barrels a day.

Neconde acquired its 45% interest in 2011 from Shell, Total and Agip for about $600 million, taking on an asset producing 15,000 barrels a day from the rehabilitated Batan and Ajuju fields. The Nigerian National Petroleum Development Company holds the other 55%.

Recovery has been rapid recently. Output averaged around 15,000 barrels a day in 2023, rose to 25,000 in 2024 and reached 50,000 by May 2025, more than tripling in two years under a financial and technical services agreement activated in 2022. Neconde projected 70,000 barrels a day by the end of 2025 and has talked about a longer-term ambition above 120,000. The 2025 campaign was its first rig-based production growth programme since it acquired the asset, and included reopening the Egwa 2 field, untouched since 2011.

Azudialu-Obiejesi began trading in 1983 under the name Obijackson and founded Nestoil in 1991. The Obijackson Group spans oil services and upstream production and employs more than 3,000 Nigerians directly.

A separate appeal remains before the Supreme Court, marked SC/CV/48B/2026, in which Neconde challenges the disqualification of its counsel, with FBNQuest, First Trustees, Nestoil and both Azudialu-Obiejesis named as respondents.