Dr Ainojie Alex Irune

Dr Ainojie ‘Alex’ Irune is Managing Director of Oando Energy Resources Nigeria Limited (OER), the exploration and production subsidiary of Oando PLC, and has been an Executive Director of Oando PLC since August 2019. OER’s portfolio grew with Oando’s US$783 million acquisition of the Nigerian Agip Oil Company from Eni, completed in August 2024, which raised Oando’s participating interest in OMLs 60, 61, 62 and 63 from 20 to 40 per cent; after the deal Irune set out a production target of 100,000 barrels per day. He serves on the Advisory Board of the Africa Energy Technology Centre (AETC).

Irune joined Oando in 2011. He was Head of Corporate Communications from 2013 to 2016, managing communications around Oando’s US$1.5 billion acquisition of ConocoPhillips’ Nigerian upstream business, and Group Chief Strategy and Corporate Services Officer from 2016 to 2018. He joined OER’s management as Chief Operating Officer in 2018; in his first year the company reported a 21 per cent reduction in its debt and a 10 per cent rise in daily oil production. As President and Chief Executive of Oando Clean Energy Limited, he led the launch in May 2023 of electric mass transit buses in Lagos with the Lagos Metropolitan Area Transport Authority (LAMATA).

Before joining Oando, Irune worked in the United Kingdom as an in-vehicle systems researcher and designer with Honda, Nissan and Jaguar Land Rover and with the University of Nottingham. He holds a BSc in Computer Science (2002) and a PhD in Computer Science (2009), both from the University of Nottingham. In August 2026 he joined the governing board of the World Energy Council’s Nigeria member committee for a two-year term.

Irune argues that Nigeria’s production ambitions depend on coherent policy, credible governance and capital pathways that align companies, regulators and the state, and he has called for structured dialogue between operators, regulators and the national oil company. He has spoken for the capacity of indigenous operators to run complex projects, for an approach to Africa’s energy transition that reflects the continent’s energy access and industrialisation needs, including a role for gas, and for gender diversity and inclusion in the workplace. He took part in a fireside chat at the 2025 Africa Energy Technology Conference in Accra.