Crude Oil found in Lagos

Nigeria’s commercial capital, LAGOS, is on the verge of joining the country’s oil-producing states with the discovery of crude oil in commercial quantities in the coastal state. Yesterday, Afren Plc and its partner, Lekoil Limited, announced significant oil discovery offshore Dahomey Basin in Lagos, according to the London Stock Exchange. In separate announcements, the partners said they discovered a significant light oil accumulation based on the results of drilling and wire line logs from a high impact Ogo-1 well, located on the Oil Prospecting Licence, OPL 310 offshore Nigeria. Afren is optimistic that the discovery is likely to be significantly higher than the anticipated 78 million barrels of oil equivalent (mmboe), which encourages search to further high potential zones. The discovery is subject to the authentication of the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), which is expected in two weeks. If certified and the partners produce the first barrel of oil, Lagos will become the 11th oil producing state in Nigeria, a club Anambra State joined recently. It will also boost the economy of Lagos, which currently generates about N29 billion internally every month. However, speaking with Vanguard on phone, the DPR said authentication of the discovery could only come after side-tracking (ST) verifications. A top management source in the upstream unit of the regulatory agency, said: “As far as we are concerned, the discovery for now is very speculative. The side track will indicate whether the resource they have found is actually crude, and this verification takes about two weeks. Thereafter, the company will communicate the tracking result to us, after which we will certify the discovery.”