Abuja (AFP) - The Nigerian
National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has said it "may well be on the
verge of a significant oil find" in the Lake Chad area, which has been
blighted by Boko Haram-related violence.
"There are
signs from the latest 3D seismic studies that oil may well be very close
to being found now in
Lake Chad after very many years of trials," added
group managing director Ibe Kachikwu.
Kachikwu,
appointed in August to overhaul the state-run group, described the
potential find as "very key" and indicated it would help access to crude
in northern Nigeria.
"I am
optimistic that by the end of the year we should be able to announce
something major on this," he was quoted as saying in an emailed
statement on Sunday evening.
Kachikwu
gave no further details but it is understood he was referring to the
Kukawa area of Borno state, where exploration had previously begun but
was halted because of the six-year Islamist insurgency.
An NNPC source said exploration had resumed.
In
2006, Nigeria handed licences to the state-run China National Petroleum
Corporation to explore four blocks in the Lake Chad basin.
Lake
Chad forms the border between Nigeria, Niger, Chad and Cameroon. Chad
hit oil on its side of the border in the late 1970s. Production hit
100,000 barrels a day in 2013.
Nigeria's
military has claimed a series of successes in pushing the militants out
of captured towns and villages in the remote region, and has claimed
rebel camps have been destroyed.
The
discovery of oil has the potential to transform the Muslim-majority
north, where poverty and unemployment have been seen as key factors in
radicalisation.
There have
been estimates that 100 billion cubic metres of oil deposits lie beneath
Lake Chad and its arid hinterland in Nigeria.
Boko
Haram wants to carve out a hardline Islamic state in northeast Nigeria
but there have been no serious suggestions that its insurgency is driven
by oil.
Instead, the militants' aim is primarily ideological and religious
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