The sudden removal of the Minister of State for Petroleum, Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu, as the Group Managing Director, GMD, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, has been a mystery to some Nigerians, as they perceived the action as a demotion.
Post-Nigeria, gathered that since his removal, the once very active Minister, who had always been reeling out one policy action or the other, has been silent, as he has had little or no impact in the oil sector, as a Junior Minister solely.
In a bid to unravel what really transpired, Post-Nigeria, through a source close to the NNPC, gathered that the inability of Kachikwu to immediately implement the search for oil in the Lake Chad Basin, necessitated his removal, as Buhari was kin in exploring oil in the region.
It could be recalled, that President Muhammadu Buhari, on appointment of Kachikwu as GMD, NNPC, had tasked him with the responsibility of exploring oil in the Lake Chad basin.
According to the close source, the inability of Kachikwu to expedite the search and exploration with the urgency it deserved, led to his removal.
Buhari, while replacing Kachikwu with Dr. Maikanti Baru, one of his kinsmen, also tasked him with the same responsibility of looking for oil in the Lake Chad basin.
Baru, having been briefed with the urgency of the directive, while receiving the Governor of Bauchi State, Mallam Mohammed Abubakar, had told him of the President’s directive, as the Corporation will resume its oil search in the Chad Basin and other parts of the North-East.
According to the Sun Newspaper, after 3 decades of elusive search for hydrocarbons in the Lake Chad Basin, the Federal Government has spent a whooping sum of $340 million, and additional N27 billion, in seismic expedition, and yet the search continues.
Financial analysts, have decried that instead of such funds to be used in cushioning the ravaging effect of inflation and recession, as many Nigerians are going hungry, the Federal Government is still bent on spending more money for the search.
They argued that since crude oil price have plummeted in the International market, there was no need to search for more oil, but to leverage on other areas of export, such as agriculture, mining, among several others.
Meanwhile, Petroleum Engineers, Investment Experts and Geologists, have warned the Buhari administration of the wide goose chase, as he could yet burn its fingers in the long run, as the geography of the zone may not guarantee a commercial find, in terms of crude oil.
Studies have indicated that the Nigerian end of the Chad Basin, has little potential for commercial oil deposits, and would require huge expenditure, in addition to security challenges in the zone.
It said, “While there are about 37 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, and about 187 trillion standard cubic feet of gas in the South South of Nigeria, what we want to explore in the North, is an unproven reserve of about 2.3 billion barrels of oil reserves, and about 14.65 trillion standard cubic feet of natural gas available for four or more countries in the Chad Basin,” the study asserted.“If you do the cost benefit analysis, you can see that it is not viable in the short and medium term,” said Henry Boise, Petroleum Economics, Management and Policy Researcher, at the Emerald Institute for Petroleum and Energy Economics, Policy Strategy, University of Port Harcourt.
Nevertheless, Baru has informed that the renewed search for hydrocarbon deposits in the Chad Basin, would entail extensive probing of some allocated and non-allocated oil blocks in the region, to establish the magnitude of the deposits. And this would involve huge investment from the public treasury.
The NNPC GMD, noted that the Corporation has identified specific oil blocks in the area, where some of the finds have been made and would move to re-invigorate exploration based on fresh strategy.
“You know that very close home, we have exploration activities on the frontier basin in the Chad and some areas close to the Kolmani River, where Shell had made some indicative discovery of hydrocarbons.“Now, Mr. President has directed me to go into that area to further explore the magnitude and prospect of those finds.”“We are taking steps to re-strategise and get into those regions.“We will re-invigorate the frontier exploration and see how they can collaborate with NNPC, that is holding Block A09, where some of the finds have been made, and also for the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), to assign redundant blocks,” Baru said.“They should be able to determine whether to resume oil search or not, and not the government telling them what to do,’’ Prof. Adenikinju, however warned.
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