Dr Jude Osimobi has been appointed Renaissance Africa Energy Company Exploration Portfolio & Strategy Lead to lead the company’s enterprise-wide exploration strategy, portfolio optimisation, opportunity ranking/assessment and capital allocation/prioritization.
He is expected to provide enterprise leadership for the Exploration portfolio and strategy, with accountability to:
– Set and steer Exploration strategy across basins, plays, and assets
– Optimise portfolio composition and capital allocation to maximise risk-reward outcomes
– Steward funnel maturation from leads to drill-ready prospects
– Ensure decision-quality subsurface evaluations for investment and executive decisions
– Drive portfolio governance and performance transparency
– Shape growth options through M&A screening, farm-ins/outs, and license strategies
– Integrate advanced technologies and AI into exploration workflows
– Support oil & gas strategy in the Short, Medium and long-term resource development, whilst ensuring synergy to shortly Exploration-to-Development-OSD
Oil & Gas Background
Osimobi, a seasoned geophysicist and energy strategist, brings over a decade of experience spanning seismic processing, reservoir characterization, exploration portfolio management, digital transformation, and capability development within the oil and gas industry.
Prior to the appointment, he served as Business/Capability Adviser at Renaissance Africa Energy Company, where he led strategic subsurface evaluations, drilling readiness programmes, AI-driven operational initiatives, and enterprise capability development.
Before joining Renaissance, he spent 10 years at Shell in multiple technical and leadership roles including Chief of Staff to the General Manager and Business/Capability Adviser for Development & Subsurface Studies, Geophysicist-QI/Seismologist, Acquisition Geophysicist, Environmental Specialist, and Processing Geophysicist/Data Scientist. During his time at Shell, he contributed to major seismic acquisition and imaging projects across Nigeria’s deepwater, shallow water and onshore assets, while also championing digitalisation and AI-enabled geoscience workflows.
In his new role, Osimobi will lead the maturation of exploration opportunities from basin and play concepts to drill-ready prospects, while driving portfolio governance, technology integration, resource development, and investment decision support. His mandate covers a large-scale exploration portfolio with more than 300 leads and prospects across approximately 18 Oil Mining Leases (OMLs).
Academia
Alongside his industry responsibilities, Osimobi serves as a Visiting Professor at the Centre of Excellence in Petroleum Geosciences and Engineering, University of Benin, where he lectures on seismic imaging, borehole geophysics, signal processing, and advanced seismic interpretation techniques.
Academically, he holds a PhD in Environmental and Radiation Physics and a Master of Science degree in Environmental Physics from University of Port Harcourt. He also earned a Master’s Degree and Diploma of Imperial College (DIC) in Petroleum Geophysics from Imperial College London as a Shell International Scholar, graduating with Merit and receiving recognition for outstanding project performance, including the Best Gullfaks 4D Project Award.
Osimobi is also PMP certified and has participated in advanced technical training programmes across Nigeria, Oman, the Netherlands, Malaysia, and the United States.
