By Oke Peter
The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) on Thursday said the volume of crude oil discovered in Benue Trough was in commercial quantity.
It said Nigerian geologists were spearheading efforts in the discovery of the commodity in the trough.
The corporation’s Group Managing Director, Mele Kyari, disclosed this in a statement issued in Abuja by NNPC’s spokesperson, Kennie Obateru.
In October last year, NNPC announced the discovery of hydrocarbon deposits in the Kolmani River II Well on the Upper Benue Trough, Gongola Basin, in the North-Eastern part of Nigeria.
In its statement on Thursday, the NNPC said it would grow the nation’s hydrocarbon reserves to 40 billion barrels through reinvigorated exploratory activities in the inland frontier basins across the country.
Kyari said the strategy was to aggressively explore for more oil in the frontier basins in order to grow the nation’s reserve base in line with the Federal Government’s aspiration to hit the 40 billion barrels reserve target.
He said NNPC’s key aspiration was to grow the nation’s hydrocarbon reserves, reduce the unit operating cost of crude oil production to $10 per barrel and improve efficiency across its businesses.
He was quoted as saying, “It is my pleasure to appreciate the good work and resilience of our in-house professionals in the ongoing inland basins exploration activities that culminated in the recent discovery of hydrocarbons in Benue Trough.
