Since the news of the discovery of Oil in the Benue Trough, one of Nigeria inland basin by the National Oil company - NNPC; broke, there has been a number of threads on here talking about it. But in the usual fashion of ethnic discord which the ruling elites have used to manipulate and impoverish her citizens over the years; the threads didn't offer much engaging discussions as one would expect. It is on this note that I chose to open this thread to offer a different perspective on the discovery.

This discovery is interesting to say, as there is aggressive push by most countries and companies to push up reserves. As is the saying in oil and gas business - "A company is as big as her reserve".

To provide some insight to non geologists/engineers on here, Benue Trough, is the name of the basin this discovery was made, and doesn't necessarily depict Benue State. Benue Trough is just one of the geological basins in Nigeria. Others include the prolific petroliferous Tertiary Niger Delta basin, Dahomey basin, Chad or Borno Basin, and Sokoto basin or Illumende basin. There is no need to bore you with the structural evolution or sedimentary fills of these basins as there are lots of published articles on them. There has been several exploration activities in Nigeria inland basins, led mostly by Private companies in the past, without any commercial success. So this is a big feat for the Geoscientists at NNPC. Kudos to them! Although NNPC has kept lots of details off the ground about the discovery: like the height of the oil column penetrated, the play type, the flow rate of the DST and rough STOOIP before the well was drilled. One can only hope that some more details would be made known in coming days as their press release stated.

But with this news from the national oil company, there will sure be interests from the private sector in that particular basin in the days ahead. One of such reason will be the relative cheap cost to produce a barrel of oil in onshore basins compared to offshore basins. Although lack of existing infrastructure could be a big issue to bring the oil to market and thus could delay first oil and also increase cost of barrel.

With this said, I think the NNPC after carrying out appraisal on the said discovery should farm out stake in it if it is commercially viable. And the company that farms in should be the operator of the asset as NNPC has not lived up to its bidding for decades.

And to the political gladiators on this forum, it is not yet uhuru. A lot of work still needs to be done. From appraisal/delineation program to the field development program and sanctioning of the investment decision. This could take another ten years if the cash and technology is readily available. An example to give you a guide of how this works is the "Egina" project by TOTAL E&P NIGERIA Limited which was discovered in 2003 but only produced her first oil in December of 2018.

On a final note, I think it won't be out of place for acreages in this basin to be thrown open in the planned bidding rounds of 2020 as announced by Timipre Sylva, Minister of State for Petroleum Resources. This will bring in some revenue for the government from signature bonus, tax from service companies that will win contract for seismic acquisition and drilling campaigns. There is no gain saying that security in the region should be beefed up and every program going forward should have robust contingency plans on any disruption such program would cause the environment. There is need for conscious effort for the Petroleum Industry Bill to be passed into law as the country is not benefiting maximally with the current Petroleum Act of 1969 in use.

In as much as revenue is desired, the triple bottom line theory of John Elkington - economy, society and environmental sustainability should be the focus in this notable discovery.

I was doubting that discovery at first but after all this lengthy and savvy explanation, who are mine to doubt...

wow..good job OP

Thank you for your kind words.

abdul824:
wow..good job OP

Can the northerns now go their way seeing they've discovered oil in their backyard or they still want to continue leaching on the south?

This is very good news for arewanistan. I expect to see Yerima and Junaid Mohammed call on the FG to make plans for secession.

RussianKGB:
Can the northerns now go their way seeing they've discovered oil in their backyard or they still want to continue leaching on the south?

This is very good news for arewanistan. I expect to see Yerima and Junaid Mohammed call on the FG to make plans for secession.

U need to grow up

NNPC promise many things in their press release yesterday do they have to live up to it.

Many are waiting for the drill stem Test (DST) so we can really know how much and how far.

For issue of Oil initially in place (Hydrocarbon in place) I believe such that should have been estimably available before drilling.


This country are game changers and masters strategist.

All connected pipes between Bauchi and kaduna should be seriously checked.

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allthingsgood:


U need to grow up

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Ok