Niger State Governor, Mu’azu Babangida Aliyu, has expressed the need to open up the inland basins for the exploration of hydrocarbon, especially as experts in the oil and gas industry have predicted that by 2030 petroleum would account for two third of the world’s energy needs.
To this end and to ensure a successful exploration of the oil and gas sector, a group known as the Association of Petroleum Inland Basin States of Northern Nigeria (APIBONN) has been formed by eight states of the region to assist in fast tracking the process.
Aliyu, who stated this at the maiden meeting of a newly formed group, said it was against this backdrop that his administration has constituted a team of experts to undertake a research into the prospect of hydrocarbon in the Bida basin of the state.
The governor, who spoke through the state Commissioner for Mining and Mineral Resources, Abubakar Baba Jibril, said the initiative was conceptualised not because oil must be found in the north, but as a way of sharing the risk associated with oil and gas exploration.
Speaking at the maiden meeting, Chairman, Contact and Inter-governmental Sub-committee of the Standing Committee on Bida Basin Development Agency, Engineer Y. Y. Sani, said APIBONN was an inter-governmental pressure group, formed by the eight states of the north out of the desire to help in fast-tracking the exploration of hydrocarbon in the region.
He added that the association would work jointly with other operating units to attract the attention of the Federal Government on the need to expedite action on the oil deposits.
He also expressed joy at the passage of the Bill for an Act by the Senate, last week Tuesday, for the establishment of the National Frontier Basins Exploration Agency to execute, promote and oversee exploration activities in the inland sedimentary basins of Nigeria.
