The Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation announced the discovery of hydrocarbons in Kolmani River 2, an appraisal well drilled in Bauchi, in the Upper Benue Trough, Gongola Basin, but was extremely vague on details.
The statement, released by its corporate affairs department, did not state the net or gross hydrocarbon footage in any reservoir(s).
The press release said the well was drilled with “IKENGA RIG 101” to a total depth of 13,701feet, encountering oil and gas in several levels, meaning that hydrocarbon was encountered in several reservoirs more than the only reservoir that encountered gas in the Kolmani 1.
“A Drill Stem Test (DST) is currently on-going to confirm the commercial viability and flow of the Kolmani River reservoirs”, the company said.
The part of the statement that could have passed for a useful status update of the probe was couched in poor professional language: “On Thursday 10th October, 2019, at 18:02hours, one of the reservoirs was perforated and hydrocarbon started flowing to the well head at 21:20hours in which the gas component was flared to prevent air charge around the Rig”.
What does that mean?
For a well that had been spud as far back as February 2019, a more standard report was expected.
NNPC added that “Preliminary reports indicate that the discovery consists of gas, condensate and light sweet oil of API gravity ranging from 38 to 41 found in stacked siliciclastic cretaceous reservoirs of Yolde, Bima Sandstone and Pre-Bima formations”.
The company said it acquired 435.54km2 of three dimensional (3D) Seismic Data over Kolmani Prospect in the Upper Benue Trough, Gongola Basin. This was to evaluate Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Company (SNEPCo) Kolmani River 1 Well Discovery of 33 BCF and explore deeper levels.
The Corporation has also acquired additional 1183km2 of 3D seismic data over highly prospective areas of Gongola Basin with a view to evaluating the full hydrocarbon potential of the Basin. NNPC has deployed world class cutting-edge technologies including Surface Geochemistry, Ground Gravity/Magnetic, Stress Field Detection, Full Tensor Gradiometry aerial surveys to de-risk exploration in the frontier basins.
The NNPC plans to drill additional wells for full evaluation of the hydrocarbon volume in the Gongola Basin.
I guess as much that something is wrong with the reportage. NNGS and NAPE are silent. I have not met any journalvor conference paper on source rock potential analysis on Komani samples.