The Vice-Chancellor of Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida University, (IBBU) Lapai and the chairman of NNPC Professorial Chair Management Committee, Professor Abu Kasim Adamu, have visited the site of a drilling project in the Bida Basin at Gulu in Niger State to obtain first-hand information on the data gathering in the basin as NNPC intensifies exploration activities in that sector of Nigeria’s inland onshore basins.
Accompanied by the Chair Professor, Nuhu George Obaje, who is coordinating the project, Professor Adamu on arrival in Gulu paid a courtesy call on the community head of Gulu, Alhaji Muhammadu Sani Gulu where he reiterated the purpose of the shallow well drilling campaign in his domain.
He said the professorial chair in IBB University and presently occupied by Professor Nuhu Obaje is testing the extent and quality of the dark rock of Kudu Shale expected to be the major oil and gas generating formation in the basin.
The Vice-Chancellor emphasized the socio-economic benefits that will ensue to Gulu community and other communities within the basin in the eventual discovery of commercial hydrocarbon deposits in the Bida Basin and solicited the cooperation of the community leader.
It would be recalled that IBB University Lapai, through the NNPC endowed Professorial Chair had earlier drilled at Kudu and Makera and encountered heavy oil adsorption on the Kudu Shale and believed this could have generated commercial deposit of hydrocarbons in the deeper subsurface.
At the drilling site in Gulu, Drs James Adeoye, Kolawole Aweda and Ishaq Yusuf who are the onsite technical team explained to the visiting team their encounter with the Kudu Shale which already showed up at just 18 meters beneath the surface to be heavily dripped with oil which they believe at greater depth could have migrated and possibly accumulated to form commercially exploitable hydrocarbons.
Professor Obaje further explained that despite the current energy transition, Nigeria still needs huge volumes of oil and gas, and most especially the gas component to drive industrialization and job creation.
Commenting, the Vice-Chancellor praised the efforts of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation(NNPC) to expand hydrocarbon reserves through evaluation of the resources in the Bida Basin, Anambra Basin, Dahomey Basin, Benue Trough and Sokoto Basin.
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