Agency to spend N1m on 2 standard analytical labs

Mr

Aminu said this in Abuja on Tuesday when answering questions at the national board trustees meeting on endowment fund.

“The analytical laboratories are critically needed for samples analysis and at the same time save time of obtaining results instead of taking samples overseas for analysis,’’ he said.

According to him, the proposed analytical laboratories will be comparable to the major ones outside the country.

“The laboratories will be utilised for all our researches to solve all our gas and industrial problems.

“We need the laboratories because some millions of naira are being spent to take some samples abroad for analysis, so having a well equipped laboratory in the country will reduce the expenses,’’ Aminu said.

Also, Prof. Ibrahim Babagoni, University of Maiduguri, Department of Geology, said the institution was working on the Nigerian sector of the Chad basin.

Babagoni said the focus was to look for petroleum resources on the Nigerian sector.

He said the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) had drilled more than 23 wells to date but commercial discovery was still not just available.

“Our work is to look at the basin and the petroleum system and some other issues relating to basis geology,’’ Babagoni said.

Babagoni said that insurgency had affected the work, adding that the field work had to stop and also stalled the exploitation by the NNPC.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that PTDF endowed eight professorial chairs in universities to conduct research on methods and equipment for exploring oil and gas resources.