The Minister of State for Petroleum Dr. Ibe Kachikwu has revealed that more gas resources are being discovered offshore Lagos.
The minister who disclosed this at the West African Gas Pipeline Project’s Committee of Ministers’ Meeting in Abuja noted that with the relative peace in the oil-rich Niger-Delta and the new gas discoveries offshore Lagos, would further boost the country’s revenue base and increase the country’s gas supply to the West Africa Region.
Kachiukwu further noted that Nigeria along with the partner countries had nurtured the WAGP project and are looking at further addressing the challenges that had hindered the achievement of their set targets.
Recall that in 2016, the Federal Government granted the approval for four of the five Aje Oil wells, discovered in Lagos State and disclosed plans to commence disbursement of 13 percent derivation fund to the state as an oil producing entity.
Aje is an offshore field located in OML 113 in the western part of Nigeria in the Dahomey Basin. The field is situated in water depths ranging from 100 to 1,000 meters and is about 24 kilometers from the coast.
It contains hydrocarbon resources in sandstone reservoirs in three main levels – a Turonian gas condensate reservoir, a Cenomanian oil reservoir and an Albian gas condensate reservoir.
Also at a recent press briefing, the Lagos State Commissioner for Finance, Mr. Akinyemi Ashade disclosed that since the state joined the league of oil producing States, it had received a total of ₦327million revenue, comprising ₦197million and ₦130million received in 2017 and first quarter of 2018 respectively.
The West African Gas Pipeline (WAGP) is a natural gas pipeline to supply gas from Nigeria’s Escravos region of Niger-Delta area to the Benin Republic, Togo and Ghana. It is the first regional natural gas transmission system in sub-Saharan Africa.
The project which began in 1982, when the Economic Countries of West Africa (ECOWAS) proposed the development of a natural gas pipeline throughout West Africa region.