Speaker details

Biography

Experienced Oil and Gas Lawyer with a demonstrated history of working in the Oil & Energy Industry. Skilled in Negotiation, Petroleum, Gas, Arbitration and Dispute Resolution with a particular focus on the Oil and Gas Industry. Latifat is the Head, Commercial Law at the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC), overseeing the provision of commercial contracts across all business verticals - upstream, midstream, downstream, gas and non-core businesses. Before then, she was the Manager, Commercial and Corporate Law at NNPC Engineering and Technical Company Limited (NETCO), a wholly owned subsidiary of NNPC, where alongside her team, she, provided support to key projects in Nigeria’s oil and gas engineering sector. The bulk of her 21-year career has been spent in NNPC, where before NETCO, she also spent 15 years providing upstream and midstream oil & gas legal advisory services within the now NNPC Upstream Investment Management Services (NUIMS), the upstream arm of NNPC overseeing investments in the oil industry’s Joint Ventures, Production Sharing Contracts, and Service Contract. During this period, she was regularly involved in the negotiation and management of contracts devolving from the Joint Ventures and the Production Sharing Contracts including gas sales, unitisations, and marginal fields. She provided direct legal support on some of Nigeria’s notable upstream projects including the Erha North Project, Bonga North West Extension Project and the Bonga South West Aparo Project. She has also provided support to Nigeria’s Ministry of Petroleum Resources, working on ad-hoc tasks which included the Unitisation Guidelines for Nigeria’s oil and gas industry as well as the Petroleum Industry Act. She is a contributing author to three of Globe Law and Business, UK’s topical books on the global oil and gas industry. “Upstream Oil and Gas in Africa - 2024”, “Upstream Law and Regulation: A Global Guide, Second Edition - 2019” and “African Upstream Oil and Gas, A Practical Guide to the Law and Regulation - 2015”. Prior to joining NNPC, Latifat worked as a barrister and solicitor with two top law firms and as in-house counsel in a leading bank in Nigeria. She is a Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution (CEDR) UK Accredited Mediator. Latifat is the Regional Director for the Africa Chapter of the Association of International Energy Negotiators (AIEN), the foremost association of energy negotiators around the world.