Buhari to Flag off First Crude Oil Drilling in Northern Nigeria Tuesday

President Muhammadu Buhari will on Tuesday flag off the validation phase of the first integrated Oil Development project in northern Nigeria.

ECONOMIC CONFIDENTIAL gathered that the flag-off will take place at the Kolmani OPLs 809 and 810 exploration sites in a border community between Bauchi and Gombe states.

It would be recalled that President Buhari had flagged off the landmark spud-in ceremony of Kolmani River II Well in February 2019.

Eight months later, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited (formerly Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation) announced the discovery of crude oil, gas and condensate in the Kolmani River region at the border community between Bauchi and Gombe states.

The commercial quantity discovery was the first in the region after eight months of crude oil exploration on the Upper Benue Trough, Gongola Basin in the north-eastern part of the country, according to NNPC.

Section 9 of the Petroleum Industry Act signed by President Buhari established Frontier Exploration Fund (FEF) with the allocation of 30 percent of profit oil and profit gas from NNPC’s upstream oil & gas contracts (production sharing, profit sharing & risk sharing contract) for the purpose.

The fund is for the development of “frontier acreages” — part of these frontier acreages include those Anambra, Dahomey, Bida, Chad & Benue trough.

In the first seven months of 2022, NNPC expended about N3 billion in frontier exploration services.