With over 20 years of experience, focussed on the shipping, energy and commodities, Louis Mbanefo began his career in 2001 as a shipping and commodities lawyer with the law firm of Ince & Co, based in the City of London. In 2006, following business school, he segued into the oil industry, first on the oil desk of Platts, before moving to FGE, a global oil consultancy.
In 2010, he joined TotalEnergies EP Nigeria Limited (‘TEPNG’) as a Negotiator. In this capacity he negotiated the sales of TotalEnergies’ interest in the oil blocks OMLs 30, 34, 40, 42, 18, 24, 29, 70 & 72, sold alongside Shell and ENI between 2011 and 2015, which realised over $2 billion for TotalEnergies. His other professional successes in this period included innovating a solution that allowed TotalEnergies to save $100 million in a single transaction. In 2015, he was tasked with the building, from scratch, of a trading relationship between TotalEnergies trading arm, Total Oil Trading SA (‘TOTSA’) and Nigeria’s national oil company, NNPC, successfully going on to win key NNPC contracts for TOTSA, including the DSDP Crude Oil for Gasoline Swap contract, the Term Crude Oil contract and the Term Natural Gas Liquids contract. During this period, he transferred to TOTSA, as an oil trader, based in Geneva, returning to Nigeria in 2019 to run TOTSA’s trading activities in Nigeria.
Equipped with such a wide-ranging sets of skills, extensive network and experience, the natural evolution was the founding of Enuani Energy.
Mr. Mbanefo holds an MSc degree in Energy, Trade & Finance from Bayes Business School (formerly Cass Business School), an LLM degree in International Shipping Law from the University of Nottingham and an LLB Law degree from the University of Sussex.
“The founding of Enuani Energy came about as a result harnessing my wide-ranging experience, knowledge and drive to create a company whose unique selling point would be a detailed understanding of both the local oil markets in West Africa and also the broader context of the international oil and shipping markets, financial systems and applicable legal and regulatory frameworks. Simply put, a local company operating with an international outlook.”