President Muhammadu Buhari is expected to officially kick off drilling for crude oil in the north for the first time.
This is coming exactly two years after the mineral resource was discovered in the region.
The event is billed on Tuesday, 22 November 2023, in Kolmani Oil Prospecting Lease (OPL) 809 and 810 at the Kolmani field site located in Bauchi and Gombe states.
According to Thisday, the president is expected to carry out the historic exercise with the support of the Minister of State for Petroleum, Timipre Sylva and the Group Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC), Mallam Mele Kyari, among others.
Sterling Global Oil, New Nigeria Development Commission (NNDC) and the NNPC Limited will spearhead the development of the oilfields in Bauchi and Gombe states.
NNPC Limited has, over the years, expended monies on frontier exploration(oil search) to boost Nigeria’s current crude oil reserves of about 37 billion barrels.
The Cable reports that for eight months before discovery in the north, NNPC and its partners painstakingly explored the Upper Benue Trough, Gongola Basin.
Soon after the discovery, Bauchi State Governor, Senator Bala Mohammed, said the oil and gas exploration at Kolmani River in Alkaleri Local Government Area of the state by the NNPC would ‘reverse the narrative of poverty and underdevelopment in the state.
The Nigerian government is unrelenting in its search for oil in the north; section 9 of the Petroleum Industry Act signed by Buhari established Frontier Exploration Fund (FEF) with the allocation of 30 per cent of profit oil and profit gas from NNPC’s upstream oil & gas contracts (production sharing, profit sharing & risk sharing contract) for the purpose.
The fund is for developing “frontier acreages” — some of these include the Anambra, Dahomey, Bida, Chad & Benue trough.
In 2022 alone, NNPC spent about N14.3 billion in searching for more crude oil.
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