The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation on Thursday said the volume of crude oil discovered in Benue Trough was in commercial quantity .
It said Nigerian geologists were spearheading efforts in the discovery of the commodity in the trough .
The corporation ’ s Group Managing Director , Mele Kyari , disclosed this in a statement issued in Abuja by NNPC ’ s spokesperson , Kennie Obateru .
In October last year , NNPC announced the discovery of hydrocarbon deposits in the Kolmani River II Well on the Upper Benue Trough, Gongola Basin , in the North Eastern part of Nigeria.
In its statement on Thursday , the NNPC said it would grow the nation’ s hydrocarbon reserves to 40 billion barrels through reinvigorated exploratory activities in the inland frontier basins across the country .
Kyari said the strategy was to aggressively explore for more oil in the frontier basins in order to grow the nation’s reserve base in line with the Federal Government’ s aspiration to hit the 40 billion barrels reserve target .
