Experts in the oil and gas sector have commended the federal government for the new oil discovery in North-Eastern part of the country. The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) had on Friday announced the discovery of hydrocarbon deposits in the Kolmani River II Well on the Upper Benue Trough, Gongola Basin, in the North-Eastern part of the country.
Speaking to The Dodondawa Post on the commercial viability of the discovery, the National President of Nigeria Association of Petroleum Explorationists (NAPE) Ajibola Oyebamiji, stated that, “It is good news to the industry. It shows that with advancement of technology, a lot can still be done in the other basins in Nigeria. There are other opportunities in the chad basin that are currently being exploited. The well drilled is an exploratory well and the gas you saw being flared was the associated gas being flared during exploration because without doing that, they may lose the entire well to pressure. So they have to flare the gas and be able to take the oil. It would have cost several millions of dollars but I cannot be specific. The reserves will be very significant and it is of huge commercial quantity.”
However, the immediate past President of NAPE, who is the Managing Director of Degeconek Limited, Abiodun Adesanya, argued that the discovery is huge for the geoscience and petroleum industry in Nigeria.
“It is huge because yet again we have been able to successfully prove that another sedimentary basin, apart from the Niger Delta, Anambra Basin, and apart from Dahomey Basin, have been able to confirm to us that petroleum system is in existence. So what that simply means is that there is a justification for going there to look for oil now. There is going to be increased activities in that direction,” he said.
On the economic importance of the discovery, he stated that “Once you have an increased activity in an area, it is directly proportional to increased commercial and economic benefits to the citizenry in different ways. Local people will benefit, people coming from far and near will also benefit. So, overall, that will be good for Nigeria.”
On what should be done to attract investment in that basin, he advised the federal government to take certain deliberate efforts in attracting investors to that area.
“As you know, the entire exploration work being done now is being carried out by the Frontier Exploration Services (FES) of the NNPC; so basically, government is the one spending that money. They have to organize what they spent the money on, the data they have been able to generate including the drilling of this new well and organize it into attractive bidding documents and invite people to bid.
“That may still be preliminary right now because this particular discovery of additional oil and gas condensate in Kolmani River II would mean that they need to appraise that discovery and determine how large it is so that you can then have information regarding reserves. They also need to do extended production test of it so that we will know the characteristics, the flow rate, how much oil it can deliver in a day, the different reservoirs that were encountered in the well.
“We are going to see the drilling of Komani River III; we are also going to see the drilling of another set of areas of the basin. When all of these are processed and interpreted, they will now integrate it with the results of the wells that have been drilled so far, it might illuminate for them where the additional opportunities are and they will drill them. There is still work to be done, yes, it is a good sign, it is a good positive news, it is good for employment, it is good economic development, good for increased activities in that area,” he said.
