The Nigerian Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has disclosed that there are possibilities of finding oil in the Lake Chad area, which has been riddled by violence perpetrated by the Boko Haram militia group.
“There are signs from the latest 3D seismic studies that oil may well be very close to being found now in Lake Chad after very many years of trials,” said managing director Ibe Kachikwu.
Kachikwu gave no further details but is believed to have been referring to the Kukawa area of Borno state, where exploration had previously begun but was halted because of the six-year Islamist insurgency.
In 2006, Nigeria licenced the state-run China National Petroleum Corporation to explore four blocks in the Lake Chad basin.
Lake Chad forms the border between Nigeria, Niger, Chad and Cameroon. Chad hit oil on its side of the border in the late 1970s and production hit 100 000 barrels a day in 2013.
The Muslim-majority northern region of Nigeria is riddled by unemployment and the discovery of oil has the potential of altering this.
