How Adegbite Falade is Powering Aradel’s $250m Expansion Drive

In oil and gas, where confidence is often measured in barrels, for Adegbite Falade, it is also measured in balance sheets.

Aradel Holdings Plc has secured a $250 million financing facility from South Africa’s Standard Bank Group. The deal, arranged with Stanbic IBTC entities, will fund the purchase of an additional 40 per cent stake in ND Western, refinance existing debt, and support higher output across its fields.

With that acquisition, Aradel’s stake in ND Western rises to a little over 81 per cent from 41.67 per cent. The increase gives the company effective control of assets once operated by Shell and strengthens its upstream exposure at a time when indigenous firms are recalibrating Nigeria’s energy landscape.

Falade, who became chief executive in 2021, has overseen Aradel’s transformation from Niger Delta Exploration & Production into a publicly listed, integrated energy group. Since its Nigerian Exchange debut in October 2024, revenue has climbed sharply, rising 43 per cent in the first nine months of 2025.

Growth, however, has not been confined to crude. Gas sits at the centre of Aradel’s strategy. The company commissioned a 100 million standard cubic feet-per-day processing plant in 2012 and ended routine flaring at Ogbele. It also became the first non-joint venture producer to supply Nigeria LNG.

The new financing deepens that trajectory. Standard Bank acted as global coordinator and bookrunner, underscoring cross-border confidence in Aradel’s expansion. For Falade, who also chairs the Independent Petroleum Producers Group, the transaction reinforces his advocacy for indigenous capital formation and policy stability.

Further afield, Aradel has taken a 6.01 per cent stake in Chappal Energies, which holds an interest in the Chevron-operated Agbami deepwater field. It also controls a majority position in Renaissance Africa Energy Consortium. These moves extend influence across upstream and offshore assets.

Colleagues describe Falade’s style as methodical, almost preternatural in its focus on execution. An engineer by training with an MBA from Warwick, he blends technical fluency with corporate pragmatism.

The $250 million facility is, at one level, a financing line. At another, it marks a shift in ownership gravity, as assets once steered by multinationals settle firmly under Nigerian control.