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Item DE-RISKING "SEARCH" FOR THE BLACK GOLD: GEOPHYSICS, ANSWER TO QUESTIONS UNKNOWN(Federal University of Petroleum Resources, Effurun, 2024-11-20) OGAGARUE, D.O.E"Black Gold" is another word for petroleum. Petroleum is derived from the words petra (rock in Greek) and oleum (oil in Latin). Hence, petroleum is simply rock oil and is more often called crude oil. The word “crude oil” is, however, limiting because crude oil has some natural gas in it when it is produced. For example, a single barrel of crude oil extracted from the earth may contain enough natural gas that can fill our homes. Therefore, in general terms, petroleum refers to crude oil and natural gas. Perhaps the realization of this fact was the reason for the change of name from the Nigerian National Oil Corporation to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation in 1977. Petroleum is often called black gold because when crude oil is extracted from the ground, it is mostly black in colour, and because of the oil and gas in it and due to their value, it is often described as gold.