Ahead of the December 28, 2017 Oloibiri Oil and Gas Festival, the traditional ruler of the host communities, King Dumaro Owaba, Obanobha III of Ogbia Kingdom in Bayelsa State, has said that the people will use the celebration to showcase their culture and tourism potential to the international community.
King Owaba, therefore, appealed to the multinational oil companies in the Niger Delta to support the maiden event.
He said that the festival was targeted at attracting tourists and investors to the town where crude oil was first discovered in Nigeria in 1956.
The festival is scheduled to hold in Oloibiri community on December 28, 2017.
The first oil well in Nigeria was drilled and completed in June 1956 in Oloibiri to signal commercial oil production in Nigeria.
At the endorsement ceremony in the monarch’s palace, Mrs Faith Wilkinson, the President of Oloibiri Oil and Gas Entrepreneurship Development Initiative, explained that the oil well was discovered on Sunday, January 15, 1956.
The Oloibiri oilfield was operated by the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited (SPDC) in the area.
Wilkinson, who is the Chairman of the Festival Organising Committee, said that preparations were on course, stressing that the festival would bring the nation’s first historic oil community to international limelight.
