Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Introduction
- Part One Trade and Politics in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
- Part Two Forging Cultural Connections: America in Africa
- Part Three Forging Cultural Connections: Africa in America
- Part Four U.S. Political and Economic Interests in West Africa
- Part Five Looking toward the Future: U.S.–West African Linkages in the Twenty-first Century
- 19 The United States and Security Management in West Africa: A Case for Cooperative Intervention
- 20 Radical Islam in the Sahel: Implications for U.S. Policy and Regional Stability
- 21 Undoing Oil's Curse? An Examination of the Chad-Cameroon Pipeline Project
- 22 U.S. Foreign Policy Agenda, 2005–9: Why West Africa Barely Features
- List of Contributors
- Index
- Rochester Studies in African History and the Diaspora
21 - Undoing Oil's Curse? An Examination of the Chad-Cameroon Pipeline Project
from Part Five - Looking toward the Future: U.S.–West African Linkages in the Twenty-first Century
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 September 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Introduction
- Part One Trade and Politics in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
- Part Two Forging Cultural Connections: America in Africa
- Part Three Forging Cultural Connections: Africa in America
- Part Four U.S. Political and Economic Interests in West Africa
- Part Five Looking toward the Future: U.S.–West African Linkages in the Twenty-first Century
- 19 The United States and Security Management in West Africa: A Case for Cooperative Intervention
- 20 Radical Islam in the Sahel: Implications for U.S. Policy and Regional Stability
- 21 Undoing Oil's Curse? An Examination of the Chad-Cameroon Pipeline Project
- 22 U.S. Foreign Policy Agenda, 2005–9: Why West Africa Barely Features
- List of Contributors
- Index
- Rochester Studies in African History and the Diaspora
Summary
Introduction
The 3.7 billion dollar Chad-Cameroon Petroleum Development and Pipeline Project represents the largest single foreign investment in African history. A consortium of energy companies led by ExxonMobil has developed oil fields in the Doba Region of southern Chad and built a 700-mile pipeline that runs through Cameroon to a loading station in the Gulf of Guinea. Chad possesses oil reserves of more than 900 million barrels. Over the course of the project, government revenues in Chad are expected to grow by 45 to 50 percent. Oil began to flow on October 10, 2003, and reached peak production of 225,000 barrels per day in 2004. This project necessitated substantial improvements in Chad's institutional and physical infrastructure. Chad's history of conflict prevented oil development activities prior to the 1990s. As a result of this timing, Chad entered the petroleum world in an era of heightened awareness about multinational corporate activity.
The World Bank Group is acting as a risk manager for the consortium and as a facilitator for the Chadian government. The World Bank Group is financing the Chadian holding in the pipeline project and assisting the Chadian government with managing the revenues and the project's environmental impact. This role entails auditing oil revenues, helping the Chadian government build capacity, and monitoring all aspects of the project. The Energy Information Administration of the United States has called the bank, which is placing strictures on the Chadian government and the consortium, the “lynchpin of the project.”
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The United States and West AfricaInteractions and Relations, pp. 423 - 442Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2008