It is perfect to say that billionaire businessman and Group Managing Director of UTM Group, Julius Rone, is on the roll. Unarguably, life has been so good to this dandy entrepreneur —influential, wealthy, charming wife and adorable kids. Rone’s entire life is akin to a fairy-tale. In life, family, and business, the 47-year-old Rone has been doing incredibly well. He has grown to have a Midas touch in every business he ventured into: starting from the bottom, to the height he is at present.
He is doing incredibly well with his flagship company, UTM Offshore Limited incorporated in July 2012 as a privately held Nigerian conglomerate actively engaged in diverse sectors of the Nigerian and International oil and gas and maritime markets including the Direct Sales and Direct Purchase (DSDP) of the Nigerian crude oil. For some time now, the grapevine has been busy with rumours that his UTM Group is on the verge of breaking new grounds. And indeed, they aren’t overtly wrong. On Monday, Rone quietly made history as Nigeria’s Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) issued his company the Licence to Establish (LTE) the first floating Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) production plant in the country.
The licence, personally presented to Rone at the DPR headquarters in Abuja by the CEO of DPR, Engr. Sarki Auwalu, will see his UTM Offshore recording a milestone of processing 176MMcfd of natural gas and condensate within the 24-month validity period of the LTE from the date of issue. To those in the knowing, this Delta State-born Rone has not allowed fame and fortune to detach him from humanity. As a good family man, he is married to Utibe, a fashion icon and Microbiology graduate of the University of Port Harcourt.