Olusegun Peters
Nigeria’s oil and fuel {industry} is about to deepen its penetration of the worldwide vitality market as Solewant Group mobilises policymakers, vitality executives, financiers, improvement companions, and researchers from throughout Africa and the remainder of the world, to brainstorm on methods for constructing a sustainable and technologically superior vitality future for the African continent.
Africa possesses enormous vitality assets, however insufficient technological innovation has continued to hinder the continent’s long-term vitality safety.
With restricted entry to expertise, Africa’s enormous vitality assets have didn’t assist aggressive home industries, viable indigenous contractors, bankable initiatives, technical expertise and applied sciences able to working to worldwide requirements.
It is towards this backdrop that the Solewant Group will focus consideration on harnessing the continent’s monumental vitality assets via innovation at its tenth Africa Energy Summit.
Designed to be anchored by the theme: ‘Scaling Innovative Industrial Capacity for Africa’s Energy Security,’ this 12 months’s vitality summit scheduled to carry from November 26-27, 2026 in Port Harcourt, will convey collectively vitality executives, policymakers, lecturers, regulators, financiers, buyers, improvement establishments, members of the diplomatic neighborhood and enterprise leaders from Africa, the Caribbean and different worldwide markets.
At the 2025 vitality summit, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Senator George Akume; Prof. PLO Lumumba of the Lumumba Foundation, members of the National Assembly and different policymakers, international vitality executives, Development Financial Institutions (DFIs), improvement companions, and international vitality researchers had drummed assist for rising applied sciences shaping international vitality methods.
According to Solewant Group, discussions on this 2026 summit “are expected to move beyond the traditional debate about Africa’s resource potential towards the more difficult question of execution: How innovation is financed, how African contractors acquire productive capability, how industrial facilities are sustained, how technology is transferred, and how the continent builds the manufacturing and human capacity necessary to secure its own energy future.”
While final 12 months’s summit befell on the Solewant Industrial Park, Alode-Onne, Port Harcourt, Rivers State, this 12 months’s occasion will happen on the Presidential Hotel, additionally in Port Harcourt.
This annual dialog has change into notably related to Solewant Group and different African vitality stakeholders.
Established 26 years in the past, Solewant Group has constantly and progressively constructed capabilities in metal pipes, pipeline coating, fabrication, development, corrosion safety, field-joint providers, technical coaching and industrial manufacturing.
Solewant Group’s enterprise round metal pipes, pipe coating, fabrication, development and safety of metallic and concrete property serving the oil, fuel, water, refinery, petrochemical and allied industries has continued to service the African vitality sector.
The group had at the start of 2025, launched its Roadmap Plus 2025–2035, as a long-term progress and industrial improvement technique of an African vitality providers firm that was decided to compete internationally by steady and deliberate investments in its folks, crops, merchandise and technical options.
Focused on the growth of the Group’s manufacturing capabilities on the Solewant Industrial Park, Alode-Eleme/Onne, Rivers State, the Roadmap Plus recorded its first main achievement in July 2025 when the corporate commissioned a specialised pipe bend and becoming multi-layer coating facility.
The facility, which was developed in partnership with the corporate’s overseas companions – Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM) – aimed to handle a longstanding technical problem related to making use of protecting multi-layer coating methods to bends, tees, flanges and different irregular pipeline elements.
Under the Roadmap Plus, one other milestone was recorded with the commissioning of the Solewant Specialty Protective Coatings and Paints Limited manufacturing plant on July 31, 2026, remodeling the corporate from being predominantly an applicator and supplier of commercial coating options to a home producer of protecting coating supplies and paints.
The Group’s Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, Mr. Solomon Ewanehi additionally confirmed that the state-of-the-art Specialty Protective Coatings and Paints Manufacturing Plant was a product of Roadmap Plus, which aligned with the corporate’s wider goal of strengthening home manufacturing, expertise improvement, expertise switch and Nigeria’s industrial worth chain.
Shortly earlier than the Namibia Oil and Gas Conference in Windhoek, the place Solewant Group maintained a robust presence, the corporate had offered 11 formulated coating and paint merchandise developed underneath Solewant Specialty Protective Coatings & Paints Limited.
The portfolio includes Solguard Emulsion Paint, Solguard Matt Paint, Solguard Silk Paint, Solguard Alkyd Gloss Enamel, Solguard Red Oxide Metal Primer, Solguard Zinc-Rich Epoxy Primer, Solguard High-Build Epoxy Coat, Solguard Acrylic Polyurethane Coat, Novaguard 100% Solid Epoxy, Novaguard 100% Solid Polyurethane and Novaguard 100% Solid Polyurea.
The Solguard ornamental coatings present qualities such as good hiding energy, adhesion, climate resistance, washability and sturdy finishes for residential, industrial and institutional environments, whereas the commercial methods lengthen into corrosion safety, UV resistance, chemical resistance, abrasion resistance, waterproofing and long-term safety of metal and different essential property.
At the inauguration of the manufacturing facility, the Rivers State Governor, Mr Siminalayi Fubara; Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Senator Akume; Minister of State for Petroleum Resources (Oil), Senator Heineken Lokpobiri; and Namibian High Commissioner to Nigeria, His Excellency Walde Natangwe Ndavishiya, and different oil and fuel {industry} stakeholders, had described the ability as an illustration of the Nigerian corporations’ capability to unravel the nation’s challenges within the vitality sector,
Solewant Group’s subsidiaries embrace: Solewant Nigeria Limited (SNL) – Africa’s largest multi-layer pipe coating facility, delivering superior coating methods together with 3LPE, 3LPP, FBE, and CWC; Field Joint Coatings Limited (FJCL) – specialised options for onshore and offshore pipeline joint safety; Solewant Specialty Protective Coatings & Paints Limited (SSPC) – high-performance industrial coating purposes and protecting methods; Pipes and Metals Industries Limited (PMI) – Steel pipe manufacturing and precision metallic fabrication; and Solewant Energy Training Institute (SETI) –industry-focused coaching and certification for Africa’s vitality workforce.
The latest subsidiary is Ukemezi Africa Oil & Gas Limited — Namibia.
The bend coating plant represents additional funding in crops.
The 11 SSPC merchandise symbolize steady funding in merchandise and indigenous manufacturing.
SETI represents funding in folks and information. The firm’s engineering, coating, fabrication, field-joint and asset-protection capabilities symbolize funding in technical options.
Having established a robust footprint in Nigeria with its state-of-the-art Solewant Industrial Park at Alode-Eleme, Onne in Rivers State, Solewant Group has expanded to Namibia to contribute not solely services, but in addition manufacturing know-how, technical providers, expertise improvement, expertise switch and long-term partnerships.
Following Namibia’s entry into an essential new part of vitality and industrial improvement, Solewant Group rallied international vitality corporations to a one-day market-entry and enterprise engagement discussion board in Windhoek, Namibia.
The roadshow explored how indigenous and worldwide companies can work collectively to retain extra worth in Namibia whereas strengthening the nation’s rising vitality and industrial provide chains.
In his handle on the Namibian Oil and Gas Conference 2026, titled: “From Decision to Dividend: Making Namibia’s Oil Work for Namibians,” the Group Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Solewant Group, Ewanehi spoke extensively on how the Namibian oil and fuel {industry} can work for Namibians.
He charged the Namibian oil and fuel stakeholders to not copy Nigeria, Angola, Ghana, Norway and Brazil however to be taught from all of them and construct a Namibian mannequin.
Solewant Group’s Namibian subsidiary, Ukemezi Africa Oil & Gas Limited, represents the start of a extra deliberate continental growth technique.
It could be recalled that Nigeria’s oil and fuel {industry} additionally attracted international consideration on the 2026 Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) when Solewant Group showcased the newest {industry} expertise to vitality professionals, authorities officers, and researchers from greater than 100 nations in 4 days of technical change, govt dialogues, and dealmaking.
Themed: ‘Steering Offshore Energy Innovation into the Future,’ the 2026 OTC held from May 4-7, 2026, had traced the contours of a worldwide vitality sector that was navigating rising international demand, accelerating digitalization, and a extra complicated geopolitical map than at any level in latest reminiscence.
Over 25,000 folks attended OTC Houston, and this 12 months’s convention featured 9 govt dialogues, 18 keynote addresses, 48 technical periods, and a variety of further shows protecting the total spectrum of the offshore {industry}.
The exhibition flooring hosted almost 1,000 corporations, from main operators and repair corporations to a rising roster of digital, robotics, and energy-transition expertise suppliers, together with Solewant Group, which maintained one of many largest personal exhibition cubicles in Nigeria Pavilion on the occasion.
•Peters wrote from Port Harcourt, Rivers State
