Abuja, Nigeria | – The state-owned Nigerian national oil company, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, (NNPC) is planning to resume oil exploration in the Chad Basin following Nigerian security forces’ advances against Boko Haram militants in the country’s northeast, local newspapers reported on Tuesday.
The company in a statement signed by Ohi Alegbe, Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division said that it would resume exploration activities in “the next couple of days” in light of the “remarkably improved security situation” in the region.
The Nigerian government had invested $240 million dollars in oil and gas exploration in the Lake Chad Basin and other parts of northern Nigeria, but that plans for exploration were brought to a halt by the Boko Haram insurgency in 2014.
A US Geological Survey assessment in 2010 suggested the Chad Basin, which stretches across northern Nigeria as well as Chad and Niger, could contain 2.3 billion barrels of undiscovered oil reserves and 413 bcm (14.6 tcf) of natural gas.
