Nigeria is a country blessed with significant conventional oil and gas resources, but there is a significant source of clean, persistent renewable energy beneath the surface also – Geothermal Energy. With good geoscience and well data, there may be an opportunity to repurpose some end of life oil and gas wells to extend the economic life of reservoirs and infrastructure. Clean gas developments are important for Nigeria, but a gradual energy transition can begin with Geothermal Energy using many of the same skillsets already being used by Nigerian geoscientists, engineers, oil and gas companies and contractors.
- Portions of Nigeria have crystalline basement rocks surrounded by orogenic structures with higher heat flow signatures due to convergent related subduction resulting in the presence of partial melt-derived plutonic rock intrusions including granitoids. There are some more geologically recent volcanic structures in central and eastern Nigeria;
- Numerous geothermal gradients have been measured and recorded across Nigeria due to the large number of oil & gas exploration wells. Values above 5°C/100m were found in the area of Agwu-Enugu-Nsuka towns within Cretaceous rocks, in the northwestern Chad (Borno) Basin, Basin, in the northwestern Iullemmeden Basin, in the western Sokoto Basin, and in the deeper Marine formation of the western Niger Delta;
- Overpressured zones in some deep oil & gas wells have shown significant increases in geothermal gradients similar to other international locations. Other locations have found thinning of depth to the basement with corresponding increases in thermal flux;
- Clean, environmentally sustainable renewable Geothermal Energy is possible thanks to modern, low and medium enthalpy Binary ORC power generation solutions. Good geoscience tools are available to help incrementally explore and de-risk the areas of potentially suitable heat energy sources before more expensive drilling is required;
- Very attractive Levelised Cost of Electricity (LCOE) is commercially feasible for many developments to help improve electrification, reduce energy poverty, and increase grid resilience across Nigeria
