NNPC TO EXPLORE FOR OIL IN SOKOTO BASIN

Sokoto State Governor Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, has appealed to the Management of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), to activate oil and gas exploration campaign in the Sokoto Inland Sedimentary Basin with a view to establishing the volume and value of hydrocarbon deposits there. Governor Tambuwal who led a high powered Sokoto State delegation to the NNPC Towers in Abuja today, enthused that based on existing exploration records, it is likely that renewed search for oil in the basin would yield some positive results in the nearest future.
While commending the current administration for re-invigorating the quest for oil in the new frontiers, Hon. Tambuwal noted that the successful search for hydrocarbon deposit in the basin would go a long way in increasing the nation’s oil reserve with the attendant value addition.
“We are here more on an advocacy visit to your office, Mr. GMD, to kindly request for your intervention and attention for the office in charge of frontier exploration to pay attention to Sokoto basin just the way attention is being paid to other basins in the country,’’ he said.
The Sokoto Basin of northwestern Nigeria lies in the sub-Saharan Sudan belt of West Africa in a zone of savannah-type vegetation. Rainfall, averaging about 30 inches annually in much of the basin, occurs chiefly in a wet season which lasts from May to October. A prolonged dry season extending from October to April is dominated by dusty harmattan winds from the northeast. The basin consists predominantly of a gently undulating plain with an average elevation varying from 250 to 400 m above sea-level. This plain is occasionally interrupted by low mesas. A low escarpment, known as the “Dange Scarp” is the most prominent feature in the basin and it is closely related to the geology. (Source: NNPC)