The Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) said on Tuesday that Nigeria
\noil reserves had dropped from 40 billion to 35 billion barrels.<\/p>\n
A Director in the department, Mr George Osahon, made this known in an
\ninterview with newsmen at the ongoing Oil and Gas Seminar in Abuja.<\/p>\n
Osahon attributed the development to reduction in oil production in the
\ncountry.
\nHe said that some oil wells in the Niger Delta had stopped production
\nbecause they had attained \u201cmaturity.\u201d<\/p>\n
He also said that vandalism and other unwholesome acts in the oil
\ndistribution process in the region accounted for the drop in production of
\ncrude oil.<\/p>\n
Osahon said that the situation called for worry, adding that there was
\nurgent need to boost oil exploration in order to shore up the dwindling
\nreserves.<\/p>\n
\u201cOil reserves are dropping and our output is dropping too. What we are
\nsupposed to do to correct this is to continue to explore and explore and
\nexplore for more oil.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe started with \u20182D seismic\u2019; now we are at the \u20183D seismic\u2019. Already,
\n1,300 exploration wells have been drilled so far.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to do more in this regard so as to have more reserves. We have
\nreached the plateau of production in the Niger Delta and we are already
\ngoing down\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n
The director said a lot of money had been spent in the effort to increase
\nreserves from the old fields.<\/p>\n
On exploration at the Chad basin, he said that oil had not been found
\nthere but stressed \u201cthat we have not found anything at the Chad basin as
\nat today does not mean that oil is not in the basin.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are optimistic about this. We have come up with strategies to boost
\nour reserves and in due course, we would make this known.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
He said that other things to do to shore up the nation\u2019s reserves were
\nseismic data coverage and drilling of exploration wells, enhanced recovery
\nmethods, utilisation of non-saddled reservoirs and bitumen exploration.
\n(NAN)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) said on Tuesday that Nigeria oil reserves had dropped from 40 billion to 35 billion barrels. A Director in the department, Mr George Osahon,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22998,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exclusive"],"yoast_head":"\n