NNPC to restart oil search in Chad Basin, still mute on Gongola Basin results
At a time industry stakeholders have expressed anger on the incommunicado posture of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) over the results of its $3bn spent on oil search on Gongola Basin, the Corporation has given signal of resuming endless search for oil in Chad Basin.
Outgoing Group Managing Director of the Corporation, Dr. Maikanti Baru, told Governor of Bauchi State, Senator Bala Mohammed, on Thursday during a business visit in Abuja that “We will go back there as soon as we receive security clearance. There seems to be some prospects there because Niger Republic drilled over 600 wells and now they are producing while we have only drilled 23.
However, he placed a caveat on the search resumption saying oil search in the Chad Basin will resume as soon as it receive security clearance.
Recall that search in Chad was halted since 2017 when a team of NNPC Frontier Exploration Services and their consultants from the University of Maiduguri were attacked and some of them abducted on July 25th 2017.
Still on NNPC’s silence on results of its oil search in Gongola Basin, Business Hilights recalls that after assuring stakeholders of making public, the result of the hydrocarbon exploration in 60 days earlier this year, getting to more than 140 days, the outgoing chief executive of NNPC is yet to inform Nigerians whether there is progress or not in the search drilling activities at the spud-in of Kolmani River-II Well within Gongola Basin in Bauchi State.
Recall that President Muhammadu Buhari was at the ceremonial flag off of the search activities which the Ministry of Petroleum Resources is yet to make public the real cost of the entire endless hydrocarbon search up north.
Already, some industry experts are beginning to express worry on the silence of NNPC over its Gongola Basin search results upon the use of scare public fund.
Whereas some contacted industry experts say the scheme may not have drained not less than $3bn, other decried why the government failed to use statistics and earlier failed exploration details released by Shell and Mobil to end search for oil and gas in the north and face integrated development in the Niger Delta and several other wells known for oil in commercial quantities in parts of South East.
In an interview, the Chief Executive Officer, Mudiame International Limited, and Mudiame Welding Institute Limited, Sunny Eromosele, decried by the NNPC had continued to be silence on their findings at Gongola Basin.
He said “If people must trust them (NNPC), there is a need for reliable information on its search activities. We have wasted so much money searching for oil in the inland basins despite the fact that we have not been able to fully develop what we have in the Niger Delta region. It is good if we find oil there, but we could as well channel these resources into the economic diversification plans.
Eromosele expressed worry on back and forth economic policy of the government especially with regard to economic diversification.
While recalling that “The government said they want to diversify the economy to agriculture and other areas,” Eromosele queried “Why investing in same oil and gas they want to move away from?
“They are frustrating and setting the country back by wasting the little resources gotten from oil. Let them proved to us evidence of what they have done. The earlier, the better, because the world is moving on without Nigeria; and investors are moving to East of Africa because they offer better policies,” he noted.
Besides, many other industry experts are worried on why a lot of long discovered oil and gas wells that have strong commercial exploration value in parts of South East and even in Niger Delta including parts of Nsugbe in Anambra and Eddah, in Ebonyi States are stilled not in the development plans of the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, rather scare resources are being drained searching for what had been searched in the past without results upon the economic diversification campaign.
