The women employees occupying various prominent positions in the energy sector have advocated for prominence and all-inclusiveness in the global major decision-making in the sector. The women under the umbrella of Women in Energy reiterated this fact during the ongoing Sub-Saharan African International Petroleum Exhibition and Conference SAIPEC 2025 in Nigeria.

The conference has gathered stakeholders of great ingenuity in the sector to deliberate on prevailing challenges facing the energy sector in the region moving forward by proffering unalloyed, sustainable, and well-tailored solutions.

As the event entered its third day, it was the stage for the women working in the sector to outline the scorecards of their various establishments in sustaining the entrenchment of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in the Energy Sector amid other fresh challenges faced by women in the workplace.

Speaking during a panel session, Lilian Oluchi Somiari General Manager of Strategic Management Organization and Performance TotalEnergies reiterated that TotalEnergies’ systemic passion for responsibility in all its day-to-day activities is a business strategy that has already embedded in the company by being responsible for staff, clients, and host communities.

“Being part of our business strategy is that when we measure our production we also measure our DEI goals. So our DEI goals we have are not set at the country level, our DEI goals are set at the global level cascading from country to continent. And our country’s chair is responsible and accountable for attaining our DEI goals.

“So that is our success factor where a country chair is held accountable for the attainment of DEI targets and we know that what gets measured gets done, TotalEbergies part of core values is our respect for one another, respect for our host communities so, we strive to ensure that staff is happy and engaged to contribute not just to TotalEnergies’ production and profit but to Nigeria state.

“In DEI we have targets for recruitment and we ensure that we don’t miss targets for recruitment in terms of gender inclusiveness, we have targets for internal recruitment and campaigns like ‘no woman no shortlist’. Accept you have proof that there is no competent woman to make the shortlist,” Oluchi Somari posited.

Oluchi Somiari further stated that part of TotalEnergies DEI initiates is the introduction of a project called REWIT which means Retaining Women In Technical and the programme is to ensure that women are exposed in technical and field operations at the early stages of their career. This enables TotalEnergies to create an alternative part when they attain the childbearing stage owing to a change in marital status.

Chioma Okpoechi Commercial Manager Production and Performance and Logistics In her take highlighted the efforts of Shell Petroleum Development Company in implementing DEI in its global affairs, she underscored the company’s recent uptick in the inclusiveness of women in major decision-making at the Shell global management level.

“In 1997 only 4% of 1400 global top leaders in Shell were women, but today Shell has said by 2025 end of this year 35% of these 1400 global top leaders will be women, and by 2030 Shell is pushing for 40%. Today at the Shell executive committee,  the highest board of leadership in Shell, we have more women than men. And Nigeria is equally pushing these boundaries as we saw Shell Nigeria producing its first female managing Director,” Chioma Okpoechi said.

Chioma Okpoechi emphasized that DEI should not be all about putting women in positions where they will be assigned functions but putting women in the right positions where they will make decisions in Profit and loss accountability while hinging her emphasis on the appointment of women as the global head of Shell upstream operations.

Another panelist in the session Sophia Horsfall, General Manager of External Relations and Sustainable Development NLNG in her presentation harped on bold steps being taken by NLNG to ensure future suitability in the implementation of DEI in the company as an ethical issue, especially in giving women enabling platforms in recruitment in its exercise.

“In NLNG we put DEI on the table and set a very ambitious target ensuring that in our recruitment campaign, Women interested in our adverts are encouraged to apply because we know hysterically women always have themselves disqualified when they find out they don’t meet up to 90% of the adverts requirements. 

“We set a minimum target for participation for women and likewise through our recruiting processes all the way to development and up to the leadership level to ensure that we are attractive. In our contracting documentation we ask for women to be part of the team of suppliers and service providers,” Sophia Horsfall stated.