The Group Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, NNPCL, Mele Kyari, announced on Thursday that the oil firm would commence the drilling of crude oil in Nasarawa State on March 21, 2023.
In a series of tweets posted by the oil company via its Twitter handle on Thursday, the NNPCL boss explained that exploration for crude oil in Nasarawa State actually commenced in late 2010.
He disclosed this during a courtesy call to the Nasarawa State governor, where he also appreciated the state government for supporting the oil company in its activities.
Kyari said, “We started exploration work in the areas that we will now focus on since late 2010. Exploration work is always a tedious activity, you gather data, interpret them, make sense of it and ultimately you’ll decide to test the outcomes.
“We have established a petroleum environment technically, we have seen our data, many years of work, most of them done very recently. Let me also say that it is during the tenure of this government. And I must say clearly that the encouragement we received from Mr. President enabled us to get to the conclusion that we are today.
“And the end result is that we have seen a great potential for finding hydrocarbon in Nasarawa State. To confirm this, we are going to start drilling on March 21, 2023, and we are very optimistic that it will be a successful exercise.”
Kyari said the exercise would not end there, as “once you find oil, you do further work. You develop it and everybody will benefit from it, especially communities around it, the whole of Nasarawa State, and by extension the whole of the country.”
The oil company is to begin drilling of the first oil well in Obi/Keana Nasarawa State in March, as Kyari pointed out that the exploration would not be limited to the current location in Obi/Keana location.
