Niger’s Council of Ministers, headed by Brigadier General Abdourahamane Tiani, President of the National Council for the Safeguard of the Homeland and Head of State, held on Monday June 24, 2024, discussed crucial issues for the nation and heard several communications, including one from the Prime Minister on the resumption of exchanges with Chad for the transport of Niger’s oil via a pipeline, according to a record. The pipeline is the 1,080 km long one between Chad and Cameroon.
The resumption of trade with Chad for the transport of oil from Niger is envisaged because of the “diplomatic impasse with Benin”. Relations between Niger and Benin have become tense in recent months. These tensions led to the closure of the land border between the two countries in April 2024. The rebellion perpetrated in Niamey by General Tiani led many West African countries, including Benin, to halt all cooperation with Niger.
In 2023, Niger will inaugurate a 1,000 km pipeline linking its oilfields to the port of Sémé in Benin. This pipeline is supposed to enable Niger to export its crude oil to the international market. The infrastructure, built at a cost of around 1,200 billion FCFA, was inaugurated on November 1, 2023 by Niger’s transitional Prime Minister, Ali Mahaman Lamine Zeine.
This is not the first time Niger has considered routing its crude oil via the Chad-Cameroon pipeline, which in its eyes is the shortest for the convoy. “With the Chad-Cameroon pipeline, all we’ll need to do is build a pipeline of around 600 km to link Niger to this existing pipeline,” said the then Niger Minister of Finance, Hassoumi Massaoudou, in November 2017.
As some media sources recall, in 2013, an agreement had already been signed by the oil ministers of Niger and Cameroon in Yaoundé following the application of Cameroon’s law no. 96/14 of August 5, 1996, governing the transport of hydrocarbons by pipeline from third countries. An agreement setting out the conditions for the transit of hydrocarbons from Niger through Cameroon and their evacuation to Cameroon’s Atlantic coast.
For Cameroon and Chad, the expectations lie in the revenues that the two countries will eventually derive from the payment of a transit fee.
