A five-year research effort by the Petroleum Technology Development Fund and the University of Jos has turned up encouraging signs of oil and gas potential in Plateau State, opening a new chapter in the search for hydrocarbons across Nigeria’s Middle Belt.
The findings were unveiled at a close-out event for the PTDF Endowment Professorial Chair in Geology and Mineral Science at the University of Jos, where Professor Nuhu Kadai Samaila, a specialist in sedimentology and petroleum geology, said the study had found geological indicators favourable to hydrocarbon generation. “There is oil in Plateau,” Samaila said, adding that gas potential is what the team could confirm most confidently for now, citing thick sediments and temperature conditions capable of maturing source rocks in the basin.
The research zeroed in on the Shendam Sheet 212 area within the wider Benue Trough, where laboratory work found notable organic carbon content in rock samples and sediment thickness topping 500 metres in places. Preliminary geochemistry pointed toward gas rather than crude as the dominant resource, though the Langtang North and Langtang South areas showed signs of oil at the surface, hinting at further prospects worth chasing.
Samaila urged the PTDF to team up with the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited on seismic surveys to pin down exactly how much oil and gas the area might hold. The research also flagged barite deposits and hydrothermal energy resources with potential for electricity generation. PTDF’s Executive Secretary, Prof. Shuaibu Shehu Aliyu, pressed Nigerian universities to move beyond pure research and toward commercialising findings like these, while University of Jos Vice-Chancellor Prof. Tanko Ishaya said the project had strengthened institutional capacity and laid groundwork for future studies.
Source: (punchng.com)