From; Ahmad Saka,Bauchi
Gombe State Commissioner of Energy and Mineral Resources Alhaji Sunusi Ahmad Pindiga, has explained that they visited sure of Kolmani Oil Well Projects for on the spot assessment because of the complains received from the host communities about dismantling and moving out of the oil drilling rig to another location outside Gombe and Bauchi States.
Pindiga said this in a Telephone interview with reporters, He said ” ,The visit followed a report from the Host Communities about dismantling and moving out of the oil drilling rig to another location outside Gombe and Bauchi States. The host communities became worried and pleaded for intervention”.
Commissioner Pindiga said “when I heard about it I called the field base manager ,he told us to come for in the spot assessment,and I informed the Bauchi State Commissioner of Natural Resources, we went there with high powered delegates from Bauchi and Gombe State.”
He said when we arrived at Kolmani project site The Field Base Manager of AOML and representative of NNPC L received the high powered delegation warmly . They dispelled the claims going round about possibly of Suspending the ongoing projects’.
“They inform the team that the rig to be taken out, has completed it’s job description, it’s a small rig now, A bigger rig will be required to continue with Re-Entry into KR 2, KR3 and KR 4.’ oil wells”
He said The small Rigg already dig over 10,000 meters and the next stage of their Job they have cleared two field including casting along the site of Bauchi State, which they will use the big rig to dig , and from the site of Gombe they built a road that led to three field they cleared remain casting “.
Pindiga said from the locations called Bauchi and Gombe they gave completed two wells each had deposit , while from Gombe State site already they dug three wells”
Pindiga said The team was taken round the project sites and everything was working well.
He said ” In there separate messages, the Honourable Commissioners calls for greater engagement with all critical stakeholders.
As representative of Government, we’re calling on all to be calm, as government is doing everything possible to ensure cordial working relationship, and commended the management of NNPCL for giving fair hearing to the affected states, and pledged that the two high powered delegation will report to their respective State Governors”.
The Kolmani oil field, is in the border between Bauchi and Gombe States, was first inaugurated two years ago by former President Muhammadu Buhari in a historic move marking the first oil exploration venture in northern Nigeria, their licence was expired and recently , President Bola Ahmed Tinubu granted approval for the issuance of all critical regulatory licences for the Kolmani Integrated Development Projects.
The project is located between Bauchi and Gombe States, where the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) said oil search would resume with the imperative to activate all available oil platforms for increased production.
Oil and gas remain vital to Nigeria’s development and revenue generation and the Federal government is ready to work closely with both Bauchi and Gombe states to ensure the project’s success.
Recently,The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources (Oil), Lokpobiri Heineken explained that crude oil from Kolmani has already been factored into Nigeria’s projected production capacity, highlighting its role in the nation’s broader energy strategy.
He explained that Nigeria is committed to leveraging its hydrocarbon assets responsibly as part of a balanced approach to energy transition.
Heineken, said, “The Federal Government is looking forward to drilling more barrels of oil, hence the need for more commitment in drilling the Bauchi site.
“When this government came in, we were drilling about a million barrels. Today, we are drilling about one million, eight hundred thousand (1,800,000) barrels. Our target is to drill two million barrels before the year ends, What we want to see is to ensure that the Kolmani region also contributes to our barrels.”
According to the project profile published by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Ltd (NNPC).
Nigeria is expected to tap one billion barrels of crude oil from the first reservoir of Kolmani oil fields around Gombe and Bauchi states.
The oil exploration could reach 19bn barrels of crude with the discovery of more reservoirs. The country will also reap over 500 billion standard cubic feet of gas from the first reservoir with prospects for higher volumes of gas.
According to the profile, the Oil Prospecting Licence (OPL) 809 and 810 Production Sharing Contract, NNPC Limited is the Concessionaire of the blocks while NNPC Exploration and Production (NEPL), and the New Nigeria Development Company (NNDC) are the contractor parties.
These partners have a strategic partnership with Africa Oilfield Movers Ltd (AOML) Consortium to provide funding and technical capabilities for the integrated oil and gas development project and to be compensated from the contractor’s profit oil after commencement of operations.
The integrated development of the original exploration site (in-situ) along the Gongola Basin of the Upper Benue Trough guarantees evacuation and monetisation route for the hydrocarbon in the location, which eliminates the high cost and burden of building a crude/product pipeline.
“The first phase of the integrated development project, will entail an in-situ oil refinery of up to 120,000 barrels per day capacity, a gas processing plant of up to 500 million standard cubic feet per day, a power plant of up to 300 megawatts (MW) capacity, and a fertilizer plant of 2,500 tons per day.”
In another phase of the project, there will be a Downstream Oil Terminal/depot for off-take and distribution of the white products coming out of the refinery and further development of the integrated project.
According to NNPC Ltd, the search for oil began in the 1990s when OPLs 809 and 810 were initially awarded to Shell and Chevron respectively as part of their frontier obligation under the PSC Agreement on Oil Mining Licenses (OMLS) 118 and 132 to help them recover their cost.
“These companies explored the acreages and drilled a well each in their respective blocks. Kolmani River-1 was drilled on OPL 809 by Shell and Nasara-1 was drilled by Chevron on OPL 810 as part of their minimum work programme obligation. But both companies reported sub-commercial discovery of hydrocarbon in their blocks.”
The International Oil Companies (IOCs) also complained of the landlocked location of the blocks which made it impossible for the export of any oil find. “Hence, the two oil giants returned the blocks to the regulator’s basket.”
In the Nigeria License bid round of August 2005 under President Olusegun Obasanjo, NNDC won the two blocks–OPL 809 and 810 on PSC basis with NNPC as the Concessionaire.
But the NNDC made several efforts to further explore the acreages for commercial findings without significant outcomes.
In 2017, the Nigeria Petroleum Development Company (NPOC) subsidiary of NNPC joined NNDC and NDPC engaged the services of Frontier Exploration Services (FES) Division of NNPC to acquire 30 seismic data over the Kolmani River prospects area.
Using state-of-the-art hydrocarbon de-quest for commercial hydrocarbon de-risking technologies, including Magneto- telluric technology, air-borne based stress field detection technology and micro-magnetic analysis (MMA) amongst others, FES went into an aggressive exploration to achieve commercial discovery in the basin.
This laudable initiative resulted in the maturation of several drillable prospects in the area and spud-in of the Kolmani River-II & III and subsequently Kolmani River-IV to determine the size of hydrocarbon find and explore deeper targets.
“The first phase of this campaign in Kolmani area led to the successful initial discovery of one billion barrels of oil and over 500 billion standard cubic feet of gas with prospects for higher volumes,” NNPC stated.
In 2021, the contractor party represented by NPDC now NEPL of NNPC had a bid round and engaged Africa Oilfield Movers Limited (AOML) Consortium as the Strategic Partner for the integrated development of OPLs 809 and 810.
