The Vice Chancellor of Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida University, Lapai, and chairman of NNPC Professorial Chair Management Committee, Professor Abu Kasim Adamu, has stated how researchers from the university discovered oil and gas generating formation in the Bida Basin with the potentials of oil exploitation in commercial quantity in Niger state.
The Vice Chancellor stated this during a visit to the site of a drilling project by the team of researchers prospecting for oil in the Bida Basin at Gulu in Niger state.
He said that the inspection visit was 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.
Professor Adamu disclosed ongoing testing of the extent and quality of the dark rock of Kudu Shale in Niger state expected to be a major oil and gas generating formation in the basin.
According to him, “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”.
Speaking during a courtesy call on the village head of Gulu, Alhaji Mohammed Sani Gulu, the Vice-Chancellor reiterated the purpose of the shallow well drilling campaign in the area.
Accompanied by the Chair Professor, Nuhu George Obaje, who is coordinating the project, Professor Adamu solicited for the cooperation and support of the community.
He said, “Allow me to emphasise the socio-economic benefits that will ensue to Gulu community and other communities within the basin in the eventual discovery of commercial hydrocarbon deposit in the Bida Basin. I therefore solicit for your cooperation and support in ensuring peaceful and successful activities of our researchers.”
He commended 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.
