Samuel Bello, Abuja
The Federal Government, on Monday, inaugurated two recently purchased N360million state-of-the-art multi-tech core drilling rigs approved by the Federal Executive Council (FEC) for the collection of geoscience data.
Minister of State for Mines and Steel Development, Abubakar Bwari, who performed the commissioning in Abuja, said the equipment could go down to 1.5 kilometres to rig mineral products, adding that apart from mineral drilling, it could also drill boreholes for water consumption.
Bwari explained that Nigeria needs geoscience data to attract investors and big mining companies into the country. He said Nigeria was on the path of coming back to where it should be 60 years ago when mining operations started in the country.
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“We just commissioned our rigs that the FEC approved for us. Their main function is to do core drilling to collect geological data and this is the first time we are having a rig of this nature. This is a rig that can go down to 1.5 kilometres and can do a lot of things apart from getting geological data, talking about minerals, they can also be used for effective drilling of boreholes. It can also be used with something we are just doing research on geothermal energy.
‘It is a rig that is multipurpose and for a very long time we have been looking for an opportunity to have a rig and I believe the challenge to our geologist now to generate the data for our mining sector because this sector cannot thrive without data and investors would only come to a country where they know there is a bankable data.” he added.
He stated that the rigs, because of their nature, could lead the nation to getting the data required for the mining sector.
According to him, the Federal Executive Council (FEC) approved about N360 million to buy the rigs. The attention to this sector was not there for a long time and we can all see how bad the situation was, for a rig of less than N360 million, we are talking of two rigs, we couldn’t buy them.
“The Federal Government approved funds to buy these two rigs. It was clear that it was not enough, but based on dictations by the National Assembly, we were only able to buy two, but we would convince the National Assembly to allocate funds to purchase more rigs and I believe the National Executive Council (NEC) would not hesitate to approve more rigs for us.”
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Director-General of Nigeria Geological Survey Agency (NGSA), Alex Nwegbu, said for more than 30 years, the agency has been looking forward to a day like this and said in most cases when the agency plans two weeks for drilling projects, it would spend two months.
Nwegbu said without the support of the minister who allocated funds for the project, it could not have been a reality.
He said, “It is one thing that would upscale the activities of NGSA and it would also generate revenue because a lot of companies need high capacity rig that can reach the depth.
“We want more rigs and it can only come from the minister when he allocates more funds and we would in the process get the geoscience data we have been waiting to realise.
“Many of them are approaching and saying we want to engage your rigs, other mining companies are also approaching, so it is an avenue to generate revenue.”
