Speaker details

Biography

Latifat Folashade Yusuff is an experienced oil and gas lawyer with over 23 years of practice in the oil and energy industry. She provides legal, regulatory, and commercial advisory services across the petroleum value chain, with expertise in negotiation, petroleum and gas law and dispute resolution. She is currently the Legal Advisor at NNPC Upstream Investment Management Services (NUIMS) where she supports NNPC Limited in managing upstream petroleum investments on behalf of the Company and the Federation. Her work spans Production Sharing Contracts (PSCs), Joint Venture (JV) operations, and other upstream structures devolving from these two arrangements. Previously, Latifat was Head of Commercial Law at NNPC Limited, overseeing commercial contracts and legal advisory services across upstream, midstream, downstream, gas, and non-core businesses. Before then, she served as Manager, Commercial and Corporate Law at NNPC Engineering and Technical Company Limited (NETCO), where she supported major projects in Nigeria’s oil and gas engineering sector with a focus on EPC contracts, joint venture frameworks and corporate governance. Much of her career has been within NNPC’s upstream business, where she provided legal advisory services for Joint Ventures and PSCs, including gas sales agreements, unitisations, and marginal field arrangements. She also worked closely with the Ministry of Petroleum Resources on ad-hoc assignments, including the development of Nigeria’s Unitisation Guidelines and contributions to the Petroleum Industry Act. Beyond her work in NNPC, Latifat has contributed to thought leadership in the global oil and gas industry. She is a contributing author to three Globe Law and Business UK publications: 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). Earlier in her career, she practiced as a barrister and solicitor with two top law firms in Nigeria and also served as in-house counsel at a leading Nigerian bank. She is a Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution (CEDR), UK Accredited Mediator. Latifat also holds a leadership position as Regional Director for the Africa Chapter of the Association of International Energy Negotiators (AIEN), the foremost global association for energy negotiators, where she advances initiatives that promote knowledge-sharing and capacity development across the continent.