4 September 2008
editorial
Exploration for crude oil deposit in the Benue Trough and the Chad Basin areas of Northern Nigeria is set to resume this month.
That is according to the Group Managing Director of the government owned Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, Engineer Lawal Yar'adua. According to the NNPC boss, some novelty will be added to the resumed operations whereby 3D technology will be used to analyse seismic data generated from the operation. This measure will help to more accurately determine whether indeed there is crude oil in commercial quantity in the area to be explored. So far what seems to be in no dispute is the presence of huge deposit of gas that is normally found in areas where crude oil itself is found.
The optimism about an oil find is largely based on the shared geological composition of especially the Chad Basin in Nigeria with the same area on the Chadian side of the boarder where oil is already being exploited. As most observers of the search for oil in Northern Nigeria know, the activity was last given serious consideration under the government of Late General Sani Abacha when the big oil players like Shell where given offshore acreages on the condition that they also explore for biofuels in the land locked Benue Trough and Chad Basin. That effort seem to have ended with no conclusive information about whether what was found around Alkaleri was in quantities enough to excite those who invest huge sums of money to exploit it.
As we welcome the resumption of exploration set to begin this month, we would like to caution on the need to do the near impossible, which is to depoliticize it. Rather than approach the issue in terms of searching for and possibly finding oil in the North to balance up with the oil in Southern Nigeria or more specifically the Niger Delta region, we recommend a lot of caution and deep thought on the matter. The current unrest in the oil producing Niger Delta should be a cause of concern to any aspiring oil producing community, given the way it has arguably turned into a curse rather than a blessing for the communities. Another cause for concern should be the way easy money breeds corruption which eventually kills everything in its path. There is also the environmental impact of mineral exploitation some of which, as in the case of the tin mines of the Plateau, remain long after the benefit have disappeared.
We feel that rather than be swept away by the euphoria of possible oil find, it is better to begin to plan ahead by building capacity that is likely to be useful whether oil is found in commercial quantity in the North or not. Such capacity building should not be limited to oil related fields but also the field of Information Technology and other such key areas so that in the event of a find there may be a pool of local talent to man different levels of the industry and also provide the spark for local industries around possibly cheaper gas and other petrochemicals. And even if the optimism about an oil find in the North fails to materialize, it should be an opportunity for Nigerian leaders to rethink the current approach to oil wealth. We should be able to ask why after of years of talking about it, non oil income is still miniscule and the extra income from high price of oil is spent on more overhead cost rather than some strategic investment for the time when the oil run out or its price crashes? We should also ask why is the drive for local content still un impressive more than fifty years after oil was first struck in Nigeria? Certainly, the new search for oil in the North should not becloud our judgement on the pressing challenges facing the country as far as the current oil exploitation in the Niger Delta is concerned.
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