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| Description: Net Worth: $2.7 BILLION Industry: Oil and Gas Country of Citizenship: Nigeria Age: 48 Number of Jobs Created: 11,000 Benedict Peters is the founder and vice chairman of Aiteo Group. Born to a banker and a homemaker, the 48-year-old Ben Peters grew up in a middle income family as the second of four sons and two daughters. Peters cut his teeth in the early nineties working with Aliko Dangote’s younger brother, Sayyu Dantata, in the oil and gas business, and with Wale Tinubu, Mofe Boyo and Onajite Okoloko at Ocean and Oil (now Oando). Peters later left to float his own company, Sigmund Cummenicci, which focused on the downstream sector of the oil and gas business. He invested in tank farms but ran into trouble when his debts far outpaced his earnings and he was forced to restructure his operations. After winning a trading line of $100 million from local banks shortly before the financial crisis to construct a massive tank farm capable of storing 210 million litres of petroleum products, Peters escaped the meltdown that affected his fellow petroleum traders, Sayyu Dantata and Femi Otedola. The current Nigerian government led by President Goodluck Jonathan has been especially good to Peters. Aiteo has grown exponentially and now trades over $11 billion worth of petroleum products. Aiteo recently acquired an 85-percent stake in block OML 29 from Shell for $2.56 billion. OML 29 potentially holds up to 2.2 billion barrels of oil and about 300 million standard cubic feet of gas. Peters is also rapidly diversifying. He has acquired three power generating companies in Nigeria for over $1.7 billion and is set to build a 100,000 barrel refinery in oil-rich Warri in Delta State. Ultra secretive and highly religious, Peters dislikes being photographed. He is assisted in his role as vice chairman in Aiteo Group by his younger brother, Francis Peters. |
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