Oil discovery likely in Chad Basin – Alison-Madueke

A former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke, has said crude oil may be discovered in the Chad Basin in the next 24 months.

The Chad Basin is located in the northern part of the country and Nigeria currently produces most of its oil from the Niger Delta Basin.

Alison-Madueke, who appeared before the Senate on Wednesday for ministerial screening, said, “We have the Bida Basin, the Gongola Basin, the Upper and Lower Benue Troughs, and the famous Chad Basin, which is similar to that of Sudan and we have been assured by Prof. Deborah Ajakaiye, who is a world renowned Nigerian geophysicist, that we will find oil and gas over the next 24 months.”

Alison-Madueke also noted that the multinational oil companies had issues with the Petroleum Industry. Bill as it affected the fiscal regimes in the oil industry. She, however, said that the right things must be done in the industry to make it more profitable for the country.

On refineries, she said that the original builders of the country’s refineries, JGC of Japan, had been brought back to do a radical turn around maintenance of the facilities.

She said that the refineries would be producing at full capacity in the next 24 months, adding that they were currently running at about 60 per cent capacity.

She added that with the addition of three refineries for which agreements had been entered into with a Chinese company within the next three years, the issue of product importation would come to an end.

On subsidies, Alison Madueke said that there was a consensus that the Federal Government could no longer sustain the subsidies on petroleum products, but quickly added that a more agreeable procedure would need to be adopted in order to ensure that the removal of subsidies was less excruciating.

She said, “It is a delicate issue. It is true that the government budget can no longer sustain the subsidies. At we stand now, we have a bill of over N1tn for subsidies and the government is still looking for the money.

“The subsidies are not reaching the masses for whom they were introduced, it is no longer achieving its aims. It is the middle men that are benefiting from the hefty subsidies.”

“This is not something that the government can slap on the people. There has to be a way that it will not be too much for the people.

“I know that at the end of the day, with the establishment of three more refineries, the price may just be a little above what it is now when the subsidies are removed.”

Alison-Madueke also said that with the structures put in place by the Federal Government, Nigeria would be a net exporter of petroleum products in the next three years.

On kerosene scarcity, she said, “Even though we ensured that we had a lot of kerosene supply, we were having problems with the price of kerosene as everybody knows. Part of this problem is because the specifics of the kerosene that is imported into Nigeria as household kerosene or DPK, are exactly the same specifics as aviation kerosene.

“It is because of this we are seeing round tripping by some unscrupulous marketers. They buy the kerosene at the price of the DPK and sell it for aviation kerosene which is obviously expensive.”

She also said that during the period, about 11 million litres of kerosene daily was made available to the market, whereas about eight million litres was the daily requirement of Nigeria.