TheCable

Maikanti Baru, group managing director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), says the company will soon begin oil exploration activities in Nasarawa state.

According to Ndu Ughamadu, Baru said this when he paid a visit to the governor of the state, Umaru Tanko Almakura, on Thursday.

Baru said the visit was in fulfilment of the presidential mandate to resume oil exploration activities in some of the nation’s inland basins, including the Chad basin and Benue trough.

He said the presidential mandate was driven by the urgent need to increase the nation’s oil and gas reserves, “thereby improving revenue streams and creating more business opportunities for Nigerians”.

Baru added that the move was also in line with NNPC’s corporate vision of 12 business focus areas (12 BUFA), informing Almakura that the NNPC team was in Nasarawa to sensitise the government and people of the state on the mission.

“I am therefore happy to be personally here to kick-start the beginning of a high-profile stakeholder engagement towards oil exploration in the Nasarawa state’s part of the Benue trough,” Baru said.

He said the corporation would do everything possible to carry out its operations peacefully in the state with much respect to the environment.

Baru said the corporation’s Frontier Exploration Services (FES) had mobilised the Integrated Data Services Ltd (IDSL), an pstreamu arm of the NNPC to acquire seismic data in the Benue trough commencing from the Keana area.