The N600 billion oil search in the North is heading for the rocks, as Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, has deferred the promised announcement of major discovery on the Chad Basin.
The postponement, New Telegraph learnt, stemmed from fresh opposition from elites and social activists from the North, who now perceived the exploration as a charade and a cesspool for corruption.
If this call for probe scales through, it will be a big setback for the whole exercise.” Kachikwu, who doubles as the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) had, last August, said that he would announce something major on the discovery on or before December 2015.
Announcing that oil was very close to being found in Lake Chad, which had gulped over $3 billion, after very many years of trials, the minister said that there were signs from the latest 3D seismic studies that indicated the potential discovery of hydrocarbon in commercial quantity in the North.
“It is key both for the geographical balancing of oil production and it is also very key for the purpose of refinery placement in the North in terms of access to crude. I am optimistic that by the end of the year, we should be able to announce something major on this, ’’ he had said.
Four months after the December date, the minister has deferred announcement of the discovery, fuelling insinuations that the exercise might have gone the way of the previous promises of discovery.
“Oil exploration in the north has been carried out back to days far beyond that of former President Goodluck Jonathan. I am calling on President Muhamadu Buhari to order a probe into this questionable search for oil. Past leaders have amassed wealth through this venture and I want the president to investigate this,” Sani had said.
“If we cannot find oil, we must get our money back because so far over $3 billion US dollars had been wasted on oil exploration in the north, particularly in the Chad Basin and Benue trough. This oil exploration issue started from the late General Sani Abacha’s regime and many years after his death, no oil has been found in the region.
I blame our northern leaders who in collaboration with their southern counterparts improvised the north through phony schemes like this,” he told students’ leaders from the North who were on a courtesy visit to him.
Preliminary surveys had, according to the NNPC, indicated that there is hydrocarbon deposit in an area covering 3,350 square metres in the Chad Basin, with the Federal Government pumping close to N30 billion in the last three years into feasibility studies of the oil potential there.
Countries such as Chad, Niger and Sudan with similar structural settings are already exploring or producing oil on their soil, leading to conclusions that it is a matter of time for Nigeria’s turn. Discoveries made in neighbouring countries in basins with similar structural settings are Doba, Doseo and Bongor, all in Chad, amounts to over two billion barrels (Bbbls); Logone Birni in Southern Chad and Northern Cameroun, over 100 Bbbls and Termit-Agadem Basin in Niger totals over 1Bbbls.
The NNPC had said in a document obtained by this newspaper that against a commitment of $864 million for the first six years of deep water prospecting under a PSC (production sharing contract), the industry had invested approximately $1.3 billion up to the end of 1998.
From the very beginning of oil exploration in Nigeria in 1937 till early 1993, virtually all exploration and production activities were restricted to land and swamps. Where prospecting ventured offshore, it was in areas not greater than 200 million water depth.
The corporation noted: “But then in 1993, the Federal Government opened up a new frontier in oil and gas exploration, heralding the bright prospects of a promising future, by allocating some offshore blocks in water depths reaching 2500 metres.
These deep water depth and plans for even greater depths than 2500 metres will undoubtedly impact positively the country’s production and reserve blueprint.
“Though these deep water operations are technically challenging and massively capital intensive, experience multinational companies have been awarded some deep offshore blocks and even ultra-deep concessions. By the end of 1998, the deep water operators in Nigeria had achieved the following: Acquisition of 21,000 km 2D Seismic Lines; acquisition of 21,500 km 3D Seismic Lines and drilling of 33 exploration/appraisal wells in depths ranging from 300-1460m.”
