LADOL’s Managing Director Dr. Amy Jadesimi was part of a distinguished all-female international panel in Vienna, discussing women in business, particularly the petroleum sector.

The meeting titled Gender Emergence and Economic Development: Forum on Polices and the Gender Agenda, took place at Schönbrunn Palace in the Austrian capital.

Sponsored by the WJ Series, a Nigeria based foundation led by lawyer, activist businesswoman and philantrophist Mrs Winihin Ayuli Jemide, the meeting was headlined by Nigeria’s minister of Petroleum, the honourable Diezani Alison-Medueke.

It ran concurrently with a meeting of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), which Mrs Alison-Madueke attended.

Dr Jadesimi spoke of Ladol’s plans for expansion, in becoming a $1b investment company.

She spoke first about how the company was created and how it grew.

“LADOL is the only 100% indigenous Nigerian deep offshore logistics base. We took an empty piece of land and over the course of five years turned it into a deep offshore base which has a 200 metre quay wall, warehouses wokshops – it also has a hotel and offices so it’s a fully functioning integrated facility.”

“It was only possible to achieve this goal because of the enabling environment created by the minister and the NDCMB (The Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board)”

Dr Jadesimi spoke of Ladol’s plans for expansion, in becoming a $1b investment company.

“What we’ve embarked on is our Phase II. We are raising a $500m new fund to expand our facility.”

Four months later, on October 3^rd, LADOL broke ground on this new investment, to vastly expend its facility and the range of its services, through a joint venture with Samsung Heavy Industries Nigeria.

Dr Jadesimi said they couldn’t have done it without the right enabling environment.

“The Local Content Act, the indigenization of the oil and gas and maritime sector have been instrumental in our initial success and in giving us the confidence to go forward, and in giving our international partners the confidence to go forward with us.”