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By Funsho Arogundade, (08111813063) [email protected]
For billionaire tycoon Orikolade ‘Kola’ Karim, the year appears to be unfolding like a carefully scripted success story. The urbane investor, renowned for his sharp business instincts and a proven track record of closing high-profile deals, in recent time, has been drawing attention across global business circles with a series of ambitious investments extending far beyond Nigeria’s borders.
The latest is a $500 million Islamic financing package arranged by Qatar Islamic Bank (QIB) to fund his group’s major drilling programme at OML 30 in the Niger Delta.
OML 30 is held by Shoreline Natural Resources, the upstream arm of Karim’s Shoreline Group. The block, of which Karim’s group acquired 45 per cent from Shell in 2012, owns and operates the strategic Trans Forcados pipeline to the export terminal.
The fresh funding, according to Karim, will drive production above 100,000 barrels per day by the end of 2027, a long-stated target for the block that has produced between 45,000 and 70,000 bpd in recent years.
The deal marks a shift in funding sources for Shoreline Group. It has previously raised a $530 million package in 2018 backed by Vitol, Farallon Capital Management and four Nigerian banks. In June 2026, it also secured a $200 million dual-tranche facility from Afreximbank, largely to support its $980 million Hassi Bir Rekaiz oil field development in Algeria through Arkad, the Italian engineering contractor majority-owned by Shoreline.
But the Qatar deal stands out for its structure. It is a different type of oil money. Islamic financing, compliant with Sharia principles, does not charge interest. Instead, the lender takes a share of the asset or revenue, aligning the bank’s returns directly with the performance of the wells. QIB is Qatar’s largest Islamic lender, controlling about 43 per cent of the country’s Islamic banking sector and 11 per cent of its total banking market.
Earlier this year, Shoreline also acquired producing oil assets in the United States, a move Karim described as raising the African flag in the heartland of the global oil industry. But beyond oil, Karim, the Agbaoye of Ibadanland, has built a diversified empire spanning energy, engineering, infrastructure, power, telecommunications, banking and agriculture.
The Group has also invested in gas compression plants in the Niger Delta aimed at reducing gas flaring. He sits on the advisory board of Harvard’s Centre for African Studies, and continues to position Shoreline as a Nigerian-led energy group with a growing global footprint. With the Qatari betting a huge $500 million wager, Karim’s next big play appears to be firmly underway.
