Buhari And NNPC: Finding Oil In The North Is Beyond Politics?
IfeanyiIzeze
To say that theposition of this government on several issues is
getting more and moreworrisome by the day is an understatement. Walai, it
is difficult to understandhow the minds of our people in government work.
How do you reconcile that in acountry where there is no money (as we were
told) to pay workers salaries or toalleviate the suffering of the masses
majority of whom cannot even eat once ina day, we are talking of spending
billions of naira (either already earmarkedor to be raised) to pump into
finding oil by force?
Is it not thissame government that boasts everyday
that they want to diversify the economyfrom oil that now is busy plotting
to drain billions on wildcatting which isnothing but outright kalo
kalo(gambling)? For a countrythat is in an economic crisis largely because
of its dependence on oil, andgiven the public push for a drastic upscale
of diminutive non-oil sectors ofthe economy, how is the pursuit of oil in
the north now our national priority? When are we going to begin to
thinkdifferently?
The government's oil exploration efforts smack of the
kind of freeoil- money-obsession that brought Nigeria to its present
situation.It is really curiousthat President Mohammadu Buhari actually
ordered the NNPC to embark on thisventure but it's even more curious that
the new NNPC group managing director,Maikanti Baru, could be insensitive
enough to be dangling the president's namein a statement that is most
likely to portray him as sectionally -minded. Couldit have carried lesser
weight if the NNPC boss had hinged the decision torecommence oil search in
the north on his corporation rather than dangling thename of the
president? It is veryunfortunate that in this country, intellectuals who
should be better informed regressto technical and economic apostasy just
to satisfy the whims and caprices oftheir bosses (politicians) in
Government?
The Chad Basin has been repeatedly prospectedfor oil for well
over three decades at great cost to the NNPC and in turn thecountry. No
oil was ever found in viable or commercial quantities. Political searchfor
oil will never find a single drop of producible oil. Just mark my word! It
willonly end up wasting scarce and highly needed funds which we should be
deployingin other sectors to strengthen our economy especially that of the
northeastregion and enable our people stand gainfully engaged rather
sitting and waitingto rush to RMAFC in Abuja for doles.If the aim ofthis
proposal is to leverage on developing the northeast region as feigned
byour leaders, why is the government not focusing on leveraging Renewable
Energy,Manufacturing and Agriculture in the region?
These sectors are much
moresustainable and capable of creating shared development and a rapid one
toorather than the wild goose chase for oil in our present economic
circumstance.As disclosed byexperts, with an average solar irradiation of
2,400 kWh/m2, the Northeast (ChadBasin) region is one of the areas in the
world best primed for investment inSolar power which would undoubtedly
solve the region's worst-in-the-countrypower situation on one hand and
that of the entire country on the other.
Closelyaligned to power generation is the manufacturing sector, and for a region thatborders four
other countries there are few better places to cite amanufacturing hub for
high export gains and extended market opportunities.Why are we nottalking
on massively investing on radically reversing the water loss of theLake
Chad to curb the current high hunger and poverty rates across that
region,reignite economic growth and development and put more people to
work than planningon draining the huge sums of money in search for oil- a
venture that is at best,mere gambling?
For the first time in my writing,let
me talk as a well-trained geologist because it is only by inquiring on
thebasic, yet elemental geologic dynamics of the Chad Basin area of
Nigeria thatone can be able to say for certain if the “parameters” for oil
occurrence inthat basin is fully met and then persuade our politicians to
simply stay awayfrom issues of oil search in the basin and others adjacent
to it includingBauchi Basin leaving it for the experts to handle.
The magic
parameters for oiloccurrence in any basin, as we were taught in
undergraduate petroleum geologyare the concurrent existence of these
factors: the source rock, the reservoirrock, migration pathway, geothermal
temperature and traps which could bestructural or stratigraphic.Pure
geology has it that thestratigraphic sequence (rock arrangement) of the
Chad Basin ensued from theunconformable deposition of the Cenomanian Bima
Sandstone over the Pre-CambrianBasement Complex rocks. Atop the Bima
Sandstone is the Turonian GongilaFormation, succeeded by the Senonian Fika
Shales, which is also in turnsucceeded by the Maestrichtian to Pleistocene
Gombe Sandstone, Keri-KeriFormation and Chad Formation in that
order.Without doubt, the Chad Basin,where only one-tenth of its area lie
in Nigeria offers possible source rocks,reservoir rocks and
migration/structural pathway.
Fika Shales is a likelysource rock, and its
immediate succession, Gombe Sandstone, could serve as atremendous
reservoir rock. The large scale Cretaceous folds in the form ofanticlinal
and synclinal folds—thanks to geophysical survey data from the areacould
make encouraging traps for occurrence of oil. More so the depth at
whichGombe Sandstone is supposedly located around the Lake Chad area could
giveenough geothermal temperature of 120-150 degrees centigrade which
supports oilformation.Beforenow, The NNPC has generated over 30,000 well
logs scanned and vectorised. Also,23 exploratory wells have been drilled.
However, all the wells turned out to bea harvest of “dry holes.” Only two
ofthe wells, Wadi-1 and Kinasar encountered non- commercial gas that could
bestbe described as “flashes.”
Thoughit is very unprofessional
(geologically) to be categorical that there is no oilin our portion of the
Chad Basin as there is a possibility that we may find oilin commercial
quantity in the region because of the discoveries of commercialhydrocarbon
deposits in neighboring countries of Chad, Niger and Sudan whichhave
similar structural settings with the Nigerian portion of the Chad
Basin.However, youcannot wish geology into place, no matter the amount of
politics orsupplications to God in the churches or mosques.
That we have
portions of ChadBasins in Nigeria does not mean oil must be in our own
section. Even in the oilbearing geologic Niger Delta, it is not all
sections of the region that bearsoil notwithstanding that they all have in
full the same stratigraphic settingof Akata (source rock); Agbada
(reserviour rock); and Benin Formations.The politicianswould not agree
with this because they don't know.
It's the duty of the
expertsparticularly the NNPC people to educate some of our politicians on
this.Up till now,what can the Northern Nigeria Development Company (NNDC)
say they have achievedin the oil bloc 'OPL 809' assigned to them apart
from leveraging on politickingwith some flashes of “gas shows” discovered
elsewhere by Shell Frontiers inother concessions outside our portion of
the basins both Chad and Bauchi? When arewe going to start facing everyday
issues that are pressing our people and stopthis unnecessary politicking
with everything that makes us look an unseriouscountry in the eyes of the
outside world? God bless Nigeria!(IFEANYI IZEZE lives in Abuja:
iizeze@yahoo.com; 234-8033043009)
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