NNPC RTI Wins Energy Innovation Award as Nigeria Innovation Summit Closes in Lagos
NNPC Limited’s Research, Technology and Innovation (NNPC RTI) division took the award for “Driving Energy Innovation in Nigeria Through Technology and Research” at the 2026 Nigeria Innovation Awards on Tuesday, 6 October. The ceremony closed the 11th Nigeria Innovation Summit at the MUSON Centre, Lagos.
The division, known as NNPC RTI, was also one of the summit’s partners. Organised by InnovationHub Africa under the theme “Innovating in the Age of AI,” the one-day hybrid event drew policymakers, researchers, investors and startups. The programme listed RTI’s Chief Innovation Officer, Rasheed O. Ojulari, among its speakers, and RTI’s Abubakar Mudi, head of innovation development, took part in the sessions.
The award puts a spotlight on a unit that rarely features in conversations about Nigeria’s oil company. RTI was set up on 16 March 2020 to coordinate research and build technology for NNPC Limited, covering frontline operations, back-office processes and new revenue lines. Its public record since then spans research papers, automation tools and a patented fuel-conversion kit.
Research and hardware under one roof
The award title names both research and technology, and RTI’s output covers each. Its research library includes a 2023 study that uses machine learning to predict total organic carbon from well-log data at the Kolmani field, and an April 2024 paper proposing a framework for adopting metal additive manufacturing in African oil and gas.
On the technology side, RTI launched a robotic bank reconciliation tool in Abuja in November 2023 to ease work at NNPC Retail Limited and other subsidiaries, part of a wider robotic process automation programme. It also runs an upstream project aimed at improving drilling rate of penetration, which it says should cut drilling time and cost. RTI has not published figures for either.
Its most visible product is TriFA, a kit that lets a tricycle run on petrol, compressed natural gas or liquefied petroleum gas. RTI says it holds patents on TriFA and on BiFA, its dual-fuel version. In October 2023, the Petroleum Training Institute said it was working with RTI on gas conversion technology for tricycles and cars, aimed at reducing petrol demand in transport.
A widening circle of partners
The recognition follows a run of agreements. In August 2025, the Petroleum Technology Development Fund and NNPC Limited signed an MoU covering joint research, energy efficiency, renewable energy and workforce development, with NNPC saying the work would run through RTI. In April 2026, NNPC signed another with Algeria’s Sonatrach on research and technology exchange, at the African Petroleum Producers’ Organization forum for R&D directors in Abuja.
NNPC said Mr Ojulari would chair that forum, with upstream optimisation, artificial intelligence, decarbonisation and industrial systems as priorities. Speaking at the forum, NNPC’s Group CEO, represented by Chief Financial Officer Adedapo Segun, said the cost of obsolescence “would be greater” than the cost of innovation.
A week earlier, on 17 April, RTI’s Olaniyi Olatomiwa met NITDA Director-General Kashifu Inuwa in Abuja. The agency said it would help NNPC build an innovation pipeline linked to Nigerian startups, through incubation programmes and innovation challenges. No programme has been announced.
Those priorities echo the summit’s own framing. The Summit Programme Director, Tony Ajah, said Nigeria has the chance to become “not just a consumer of AI technologies but a creator of solutions.”
What comes next
RTI says it works with companies, universities, public bodies and individual researchers, and offers fellowships, a corporate venturing programme for startups, and InnoVerse, NNPC’s channel for ideas from the public. A hackathon, a build-a-thon and innovation days are listed on its site with dates still to be announced. The award confirms that the work is being noticed.
