In a few months, Oando PLC, a Nigerian oil company, is expected to take a rare step for any Nigerian company by applying for a listing on the London Stock Exchange. It will be following the earlier move by Guaranty Trust Bank Plc, which was listed two years ago.

The move is an indication of something even more unusual about Oando: it is in position to become Nigeria’s first major indigenous energy company.

The Nigerian oil market has for years been dominated by major foreign players like Royal Dutch Shell PLC, whose advanced

technology and know-how have allowed this West African state to become the world’s eighth-biggest oil exporting nation. But Oando, under chief executive Wale Tinubu, has bucked traditional investor views of Nigerian oil firms, most of which have little track record for being able to execute challenging oil projects.

Oando is parlaying its position as Nigeria’s leading fuel retailer - a status it built just in the last few years - into plans to be a bigger, integrated oil company. With strong management that is seen as credible to the broader investment world, Oando, which is audited by PricewaterhouseCoopers, has separated itself from a raft of other small local players.

Though still small by global oil standards, Oando is now aggressively laying the groundwork to boost its crude-pumping operations. It recently forked out hundreds of millions of dollars for the rights to drill for crude in two areas of Nigeria’s offshore waters and cut deals with Russian natural gas giant OAO

Gazprom and with the state-run Ghana National Petroleum Corp. to explore for hydrocarbons and build gas infrastructure.

“A lot of [investors] are learning that there are indigenous [Nigerian] companies, who in every way and manner run their businesses like world class corporations,” said Oando’s Mr. Tinubu in an interview at his office here in Nigeria’s financial capital.

Mr. Tinubu, a lawyer by training and a graduate of the London School of Economics, has been at the helm since 2005.

Oando, with stock listings already on the Nigerian Stock Exchange and South Africa’s JSE Ltd., has received shareholder approval to raise $1.3 billion from local and foreign creditors to bankroll its expansion.

As it grows, Oando is exploiting a shift in Nigeria where, after years of failed policy, the government is moving to encourage the development of its own petroleum industry.

“There’s a desire for the government to see assets reinvested in local companies as well as local companies increasing their share of the energy-services market of the country,” Mr. Tinubu said.

That foreign oil companies have largely built up this West African nation’s petroleum sector the past six decades is a longstanding source of ignominy for locals and the government.

Oando, whose stock has gained around 25 per cent this year on the Nigerian Stock Exchange, could represent a break from that legacy. The company was formed in 2003 following a merger of Unipetrol Nigeria PLC and Agip Nigeria PLC, but the company’s roots date to more than five decades ago as a unit of what is now Exxon Mobil Corp. In the 1990s, through a process of state privatization and acquisitions, Oando came into its own as Nigeria’s leading fuel retailer.