The Federal Government has concluded arrangements to kick-off the validation phase of the first integrated oil development project in Northern Nigeria on Tuesday as part of sustained efforts to tap into hydrocarbon resources deposits of the country.
According to sources at the Presidency, the event to be performed by President Muhammadu Buhari 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 the President, who doubles as the Minister of Petroleum Resources, had in February 2019 flagged off the landmark spud-in ceremony of Kolmani River II Well.
A few months later, precisely in October 2019, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) (now Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), 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 (PIA) 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” and part of the frontier acreages include those in Anambra, Dahomey, Bida, Chad & Benue trough.
Available official figures indicated that in the first seven months of this year, NNPCL expended about N3 billion in frontier exploration services.
