The Group Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), Mele Kyari, announced on Thursday that the oil firm would commence the drilling of crude oil in Nasarawa State on March 21, 2023.
In series of tweets posted by the oil company via its Twitter handle on Thursday, the NNPCL boss explained that exploration for crude oil in Nasarawa State actually commenced in late 2010.
He disclosed this during a courtesy call on the Nasarawa State governor, where he also appreciated the state government for supporting the oil company in it activities.
Kyari said, “We started exploration work in the areas that we will now focus on since late 2010. Exploration work is always a tedious activity, you gather data, interpret them, make sense out of it and ultimately you’ll decide to test the outcomes.
“We have established a petroleum environment technically, we have seen our data, many years of work, most of them done very recently. Let me also say that it is during the tenure of this government. And I must say clearly that the encouragement we received from Mr President enabled us to get to the conclusion that we are today.
“And the end result is that we have seen a great potential for finding hydrocarbon in Nasarawa State. To confirm this, we are going to start drilling on March 21, 2023, and we are very optimistic that it will be a successful exercise.”
Kyari said the exercise would not end there, as “once you find oil, you do further work. You develop it and everybody will benefit from it, especially communities around it, the whole of Nasarawa State and by extension the whole of the country.”
The oil company is to begin drilling of the first oil well in Obi/Keana Nasarawa State in March, as Kyari pointed out that the exploration would not be limited to the current location in Obi/Keana location.
On January 14, 2023, The PUNCH reported that NNPCL announced the discovery of oil in Nasarawa State and said it was set to drill the first foot of an oil well in the Northern state.
It said the discovery was in continuation of its oil exploration activities in the country’s inland basins, adding that it would spud the first oil well in Nasarawa State in March 2023.
On January 5, 2023, The PUNCH also reported that NNPC was prospecting for crude oil in more locations across the north, after discovering the commodity in Bauchi and Gombe states.
The report stated that NNPC was taking coordinated steps for more frontier exploration in the region, as part of measures to shore up the country’s oil output and reserves.
The company had disclosed this in a document on the frontier exploration services activities of the NNPC from 2020 to 2022, as outlined some prospective states where oil was expected to be discovered to include Niger, Nasarawa, Sokoto, Borno, Yobe, Adamawa, Bauchi, and Gombe.
