Rabiu Omaku
For years, talk of oil in Nasarawa State was just talk. Old stories about crude oil under the ground in the Middle Benue Trough passed around among geologists and elders, but no government tested the claim with real drilling.
However, that narrative changed under Governor Abdullahi Sule. He once worked in the oil and gas industry in Houston, Texas, and that experience gave him the confidence to push the idea from talk to real field work.
Governor Sule promised oil as far back as 2019, and many people saw it as mere campaign talk. But barely a year into his first term, the promise began to take shape. The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited, working with the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission, carried out deep exploration work across Keana and Obi Local Government Areas.
This work built on studies that started as far back as 2010. By early 2023, the company confirmed oil in commercial quantity in the area. Further findings also showed signs of oil in Agwatashi and Assakio communities in Obi.
That confirmation led to one of the biggest events in the state’s recent economic history. On February 18, 2023, the Nasarawa State Government signed a Memorandum of Understanding with NNPCL to pave way for drilling.
The next month, on March 28, former President Muhammadu Buhari flagged off the spud in of the Ebenyi A Well in Ajibu community, Obi Local Government Area. Governor Sule and former NNPCL Group Chief Executive Officer, Mele Kyari, carried out the ceremony on the President’s behalf.
The late Buhari said the move was part of the country’s wider plan to explore oil and gas in frontier basins, naming Nasarawa alongside the Chad Basin, Sokoto Basin, Bida Basin and other inland sites.
But the actual drilling did not go as smoothly as the ceremony suggested. Reports later showed the well was not truly drilled until July 22, 2023, almost four months after the flag off. The delay was due to problems getting water to the site.
Once drilling started, the project ran into more trouble because of thick rock formations under the ground in Obi, a known problem in that part of the Benue Trough. Equipment breakdown added to the delay.
By 2024, NNPCL said the drilling contractor was working to replace old equipment so drilling could continue toward the planned depth of over fourteen thousand feet.
This delay has, at different times, made people worry that the project may have stopped for good. NNPCL has pushed back against that idea more than once. In statements from its corporate communications office, the company said it had not stopped, and would not stop, its inland exploration work in the north.
It described the Nasarawa project and the related Kolmani field in Bauchi and Gombe states as central to the country’s plan to raise its crude reserves from 37 billion barrels toward a target of 50 billion barrels.
Governor Sule has also not relented. Just last week, during a visit by the Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission to Government House, Lafia, the governor renewed his call on the Federal Government to speed up onshore exploration in the state.
He said the delay was unwise, given the amount of oil already confirmed. He also asked the Federal Government to look beyond its usual reliance on offshore oil in the Niger Delta. He named Nasarawa, Kolmani and the Chad Basin as inland sites that could cut cost and spread out production risk.
His point was simple, depending on one region for most of the nation’s oil is risky, and opening up inland basins would make the country’s energy supply stronger.
The Federal Government, through NNPCL, has continued to show it shares this thinking, even though the pace of action is frustrating for the people of Nasarawa State.
NNPCL leaders have said the same drilling rig used to record success at Kolmani was moved to Nasarawa on purpose, to repeat that success. They say planning after exploration, though slow, is still active and not dropp
