-Felix Douglas
The Women in Maritime and Energy (WIME) Awards marked a significant milestone with its 5th edition, celebrating outstanding individuals who continue to shape, transform, and advance Nigeria’s maritime and energy sectors.
In a fireside chats at the 2026 WIME Awards, Mrs. Bassey Adie, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer (MD/CEO) of LOYZ Marine Services spoke about her company and women involvement in running an organization.
Excerpts:
You have built a career in a male dominated industry. What did investing in yourself look like in the stage of your journey and how did this shape your company?
LOYZ Marine is five years old and we have been rendering services and I’m happy for what the company is doing. I’ll discuss on two ways. One will be personal and the other professional.
Personally, the early stages of my career, things that were important to me was that during my career in the maritime and energy space is not something that leads to chance, it’s something that I did intentionally. Personally, my intention looked like ensuring that what I was doing aligned with purpose.
I ensured that when I was present in the room, not just participating but being known. It was building competence and substance. This was the core of my personal trajectory.
It was how can I build myself up to the point where I don’t need to be introduced, my work goes ahead and speaks for me.
Today, five years of LOZY, we’ve been able to support three Nigeria Oil Companies (NOCs) to get to first oil, TotalEnergies, Chappal, Oando and others we were involved in those projects.
Five years later, we’ve also launched operations offshore Cotonou. We’ve also supported the revamping of the 20 year old Seme field that has been idle for a while. So, those are just a snippet of the things that we have done. What was important again personally was ensuring that we build capacity. What capacity looks like is personally and professionally as LOYZ.
When we started, it was important that we focus on building capacity. Let’s ensure that people know that we are capable. The next thing was on compliance.
You can’t walk in the maritime industry and think is a work in the park. It’s an industry that doesn’t forgive because it costs millions of dollars when something goes wrong. Compliance was a big deal when we started.
Oando was my first client. The company was our first client when we launched operation. We made sure that all documentations required were in place.
Capacity, compliance and capability are key to us in LOYZ, being able to do and say what we do. Personally, our journey started in Oando.
When I was studying in my career from my professional discipline, I received the right training ensuring that I got the right certifications and have knowledge of the operations.
I remember one time I had an issue with offshore and because of my knowledge of it, I was able to key into the project. Three things are vital here, competence, capacity, compliance and above all, building of substance.
What does it take to move women from participation to real ownership?
Personally, I don’t like the word women empowerment because I don’t believe we need to empower women. You know why, we are already capable, competent and have what it takes to lead and thrive. This is a clear message.
What I believe has been missing, is access. The missing point is not talent but access. I’m speaking in my position as a business owner. In the energy space, we talked about data. There are 22% of us in business leadership especially the maritime sector that 35,000 companies registered to operate in the energy and maritime space in Nigeria, less than 1% of that number is owned by women.
I don’t think that’s something we need to be happy about because it shows that we need to do more as women.
Local content has created a great policy and pathway for most of the indigenous companies to grow into what we have today.
The question again is how do we move women from participation to ownership?
Ownership is exactly where the game changer is because it means that we’re able to drive change. What do we need to do? I’ll summarize with three key things. The first thing is access to the right opportunities. I mean inclusive opportunities. The second thing is finance. Banks don’t just fund an idea.
The bank funds structured bankable contracts or business proposals. So, if there’s no access, there’s no finance.
The last aspect is intentionally building capacity aligning with policies, proposals which are the realities of the industry.
Adie enjoined the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) to play a key role in managing investments in Nigeria with policy ensuring that assets owners are able to have inclusive participation of women.
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