Volume 2, issue #23 - 27-10-1997

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Trouble for Chad-Cameroon oil pipeline project

Sept. 18, 1997 Ecologists on at least three continents are protesting against a $ 3.5 billion project that would enable landlocked Chad to export its oil through Cameroon. U.S. and European non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have been lobbying against the project in their respective countries, while Cameroonian activists have been doing so in their.
The project involves building an oil pipeline from Chad to the Atlantic Ocean port of Kribi in the south of neighbouring Cameroon, as well as storage facilities in Kribi. Construction work is expected to start in 1998 and crude oil from Chad is scheduled to begin passing through Kribi by the year 2000.
The project is expected to provide jobs for some 600 Cameroonians and spur economic development to landlocked Chad, one of the poorest countries in the world.
But for Jean Nke Ndih, president of Defense de l'Environnement Camerounais (DEC) -- a local environmental NGO -- the Chad-Cameroon Oil Pipeline Project is a threat to the environment. He charges that it will only serve to further impoverish the people of the two countries and benefit "highly corrupt regimes" in Yaounde and N'djamena. He has been especially critical of the role the World Bank has played in the project.
"The bank knows that proceeds from oil production in Cameroon are directed into the private accounts of corrupt leaders," he argues. "The people do not even as much as know how much money their oil produces. Is it now that benefits from the pipeline will trickle down to them? Yet foreign aid donors, particularly France and multinational development banks...even encourage generalised corruption in Cameroon by providing more loans, thereby aggravating the already high debt burden, while the country's natural resources continue to disappear without any benefit to citizens."
Ndih claims that the governments in Cameroon and Chad have demonstrated over the years that the welfare of their people is not their concern. Moreover there is no guarantee that World Bank investments in the project will be channelled to areas such as health, education, and environmental protection, he said. In Cameroon the project will aggravate poverty because it will lead to the pollution of Kribi's beaches and scare off tourists.
Furthermore, the pipeline corridor will cut through thick natural tropical forest in Southern Cameroon, encourage population pressure on the forest from thousands of job seekers and constitute a real threat to the pygmy people whose habitat will be destroyed. In Southern Chad, where the oil fields are located and which is a region long neglected by N'djamena, thousands of villagers have been displaced, and one person has already been killed by Esso security guards for trespassing on his own land, bringing home the real threat of the pipeline project, according to Ndih.
"There is not one iota of doubt in my mind that we are moving toward another Ogoniland," he warns, referring to the disputed oil territory in Nigeria. He has called on global solidarity to put an end to the "shameless acts of corrupt, inhuman regimes in Cameroon and Chad."
The 1,050-km pipeline project has come in for criticism from many other environmental groups who feel it poses a threat to biodiversity and to a healthy environment in the region.
Its critics include the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) of the United States, Amis de la Terre and Agir Ici Pour un Monde Solidaire of France, and Germany's Rettet den Regenwald FIAN International. They have been lobbying Western countries to block finance for the project, and in May, convinced Germany's Bundestag (Parliament) to approve a motion against World Bank participation in it.
The Chad-Cameroon Pipeline, which aims to develop three oil fields in Southern Chad in addition to building the pipeline, links the Exxon, Gulf and Shell oil corporations. The three companies, together with the governments of Cameroon and Chad, recently launched the Cameroon Oil Transport Company (COTCO) to construct and manage the pipeline.
According to Michel Gallet, pipeline manager for Esso (Exxon), the project will last around 30 years, during which the state of Chad is expected to collect between $ 2.5 billion and $ 3 billion in revenue and Cameroon $ 400 million to $ 500 million.
Responding to criticism from green NGOs, Gallet says the project offers Chad an opportunity to take advantage of its crude oil and bring development to its people. The pipeline, he says, will be built according to international design and construction standards. "There will be no difference between this pipeline and the pipelines operated in Europe or the States," he adds. "In the States and in Europe pipelines are pretty well run and cases of pollution are very, very limited. I cannot say that there will be no leaks at all, but we will take all the measures in terms of design and construction to limit this risk to a very minimum."
According to Gallet, although the pipeline will run through equatorial forest, its route has been selected in such a way that it will run parallel to existing roads and "will not add disturbance to an already disturbed rainforest."
In fact it will cross less than 10 km of undisturbed forest and avoid pygmy settlements, adds Gallet, who says it is only while construction work is going on that the people who live in the areas concerned will be disturbed.
After construction, people will be able to go back and farm their fields, so there will be no displaced persons and those who suffer crop loss during construction will be compensated at market prices, Gallet said.