President Buhari orders further
exploration of crude oil in the north-east – According to Baru, NNPC would
explore Chad basin, where Shell had made some indicative discovery of
hydrocarbons crude oil
President Muhammadu Buhari has
directed the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to escalate search
for oil in the north-east. Garba Deen Muhammad, the spokesperson of the
corporation, in a statement unveiled on July 25, Monday, said it is stepping up
measures to enable a successful operation in the current search for crude oil
in the Chad basin and other parts of the inland substance basin.
According to
him, this is in line with Buhari’s order “for deeper inquest into the
prospectivity of some hitherto neglected finds in some areas in the North Eastern
part of Nigeria”.
Maikanti Baru, the newly-appointed NNPC
director, revealed this while receiving Governor Mohammed Abubakar of Bauchi
state, who was on a courtesy visit to the NNPC Towers, Abuja. He stated that
the revived search for hydrocarbon deposits in the Chad basin would imply
extended searching for some allocated and non-allocated oil blocks in the
region with a view to establishing the magnitude of the deposits. Bauchi
governor said the reason for his visit was to felicitate with the new GMD on
his nomination, stating that Bauchi state is proud of Baru and his
accomplishments so far in the oil and gas industry. On the other hand, Baru
stated that the NNPC has identified specific oil blocks in the area (north-east)
where some of the finds have been successful and would move to re-invigorate
exploration based on new strategy. He said: “You know that very close home, we
have exploration activities on the frontier basin in the Chad and some areas
close to the Kolmani river where Shell had made some indicative discovery of
hydrocarbons and Mr. President has directed me to go into that area to reprove
and further explore the magnitude and prospectivity of those finds. “We are
taking steps to re-strategize and get into those regions. We will re-invigorate
the frontier exploration and see how they collaborate with NNPC that is holding
Block A09 where some of the finds have been made and also Department for
Petroleum Resources, DPR, for the other blocks that have not been assigned.”
Baru called on the Bauchi governor to
cooperate with the NNPC in tackling the threat of pipeline vandalism. The GMD
of the corporation asked that peculiar attention be given to reported line
breaks along the NNPC products supply line from Jos-Gombe-Bauchi enroute the
Maiduguri depot. Nigeria’s oil production in free fall following more attacks
of the Niger Delta militant groups. Attacks are now coming on a weekly basis,
and each time, they succeed in taking more oil off line, making the government
to accept that half of the country’s oil production is now effectively halted.
Nigerian petroleum officers said that over one million barrels per day of
production has been lost.
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