Benedict Peters – Top 10 Igbo Business Moguls Shaping Nigeria’s Economy

Mr. Benedict Peters, Founder and managing director/CEO, Aiteo Group, is the corporate behemoth behind the integrated energy conglomerate. The group is a valued portfolio of strategic investments across the energy value chain. This includes petroleum exploration and production, petroleum products storage and marketing, liquefied petroleum gas and electric power generation.

Peters has played an outstanding role in the development of the Nigerian oil and gas industry. He was part of the formation of Ocean and Oil Limited that towers in the industry today as Oando.

Aiteo is a large indigenous group that has become one of the most successful energy providers in Nigeria and a major player in the international market. Peters commands a wealth of experience in the oil and gas industry and has earned much credit for empowering Nigeria to develop its energy infrastructure towards assuming control of its natural resources. Under his leadership, the company has recorded consistent growth with diversified holdings that have given it considerable influence across the energy marketplace.

Aiteo is a realization of Peter’s vision of an integrated business model that combines several aspects of the energy industry in order to maximize value creation and solutions provided. It is multifaceted energy solutions that cut across mining, extraction, production, processing, manufacturing and marketing operations. He has contributed immensely in Nigeria’s infrastructure development effort, which has earned him a valued position among Africa’s most successful corporate leaders.

Aiteo boasts comprehensive energy capabilities and services from deep water exploration through electric power generation down to retail delivery of refined petroleum products. The company undertakes bulk petroleum products storage, oilfield services, electricity generation and distribution, LPG bulk storage and marketing and distribution of refined petroleum products, including a rapidly growing retail distribution network.

Peters has built one of the largest private storage facilities for refined petroleum products in sub-Saharan Africa. The facilities, at Port Harcourt and Apapa terminals, have a combined capacity of storing more than 320 million litres of products.

His quest is to see a major leap in Nigeria and Africa’s capacity in the global energy market. Peters has invested heavily in some of the world’s most significant basins, including the Niger Delta and the Benue Trough to grow oil and gas yield for the long term.

He has deployed one of the aggressive exploration and innovative extraction techniques seen in the business in his effort to keep oil flowing to an energy-hungry world. His operations have extended into the deep water basins off the shores of West Africa to find new oil, as conventional sources get increasingly challenging. He is determined to break new grounds by developing high-risk, high-potential oil and gas basins using innovative high-tech methods.

The hopes for increasing Nigeria’s proven oil reserves lie in deep water exploration and Peters’ Aiteo is firmly resolved to bring the hopes to fruition. “We aim to work tirelessly across the upstream market, in both exploration and retrieval, so that our future discoveries add to the known oil reserves of the African continent as a whole and support the oil industry for the long term, while our work to tap into already-known reservoirs of oil increases output in the short term, bolstering Nigeria and other African countries’ positions as world leaders in oil production”, the company stated.

Aiteo has in place a large capacity for distribution of petroleum products, which is a key element of its mission of providing integrated energy solutions to Nigeria and beyond. The company has petroleum products marketing, supply and trading arms that carry out the export and import of petroleum products. It is actively involved in the importation of petroleum products for NNPC.

The company has a large trucking fleet that completes the downstream infrastructures. The integrated design enables products delivery across the length and breadth of the Nigerian market.

Aiteo Group has a power generating subsidiary – Aiteo Power Generation Company Ltd, which won the bid for Alaoji Power Generation Company. This has enabled further integration of operations towards building a power generation hub in the Niger Delta. Its power generation projects are designed to be fed from gas resources from oil wells.

Peters is planning big – to make Aiteo a major player in the power industry. He is working out a master plan of using gas, oil and coal to generate electricity and market it to Nigeria and other West African countries. He expects that the projects will help to bring electricity to an estimated 7.6 million people.

Peters’ energy solution master plan has an Africa-wide focus that will create access to the power grid everywhere in the continent. His target is to see that the vast gas reserves in Africa are fully developed to electrical energy readily available to African people wherever they may be in the continent.

Exploiting the potentials of natural gas is a major component of Peters’ energy portfolio as he embarks on the next phase of exploration and development activities. In alliance with internationally reputed providers of gas solutions, his company is developing all aspects of the midstream and downstream natural gas value chain. This involves massive investments in gas gathering and processing facilities, LPG production, storage and distribution. It also includes pipeline infrastructural network development, NGL processing, transportation and logistics.