N’DJAMENA, 6 May 2006 — Chad’s oil output could more than double in five years as new fields developed by a US-led consortium come on stream and other projects with Canadian, South African and Taiwanese partners bear fruit, the oil minister said yesterday.
“In the next five years, I think we could reach 400,000 barrels per day if all the projects proceed successfully,” Mahamat Nasser Hassane told Reuters in an interview. Chad, which began pumping crude in 2003, produces 160,000-170,000 bpd.
The Central African country held a one-sided presidential election on Wednesday, and is almost certain to re-elect President Idriss Deby for a third five-year term.
The election went ahead despite an opposition boycott and a threat by rebels to disrupt voting, but journalists and diplomats reported a visibly low turnout.
Deby’s government, which accuses neighboring oil producer Sudan of backing the rebels, has been embroiled this year in a dispute with the World Bank over the use of oil revenues, but an agreement reached last week headed off a government threat to halt oil production.
Hassane said a consortium headed by US oil major ExxonMobil, which operates a 250,000 bpd capacity pipeline carrying crude from landlocked Chad to the Cameroon coast, was developing and exploring several new concessions in the Doba, Doseo and Lake Chad basins.
These could all add potential new production of between 20,000 and 40,000 bpd each, he said. “We think that the consortium, with all these new small fields, will quickly fill the pipeline (to its 250,000 bpd capacity) between now and mid-2007,” Hassane said.
In addition, he said Chad had signed exploration concessions with Canada’s EnCana and the South African office of Toronto-listed Energem Resources Inc.
Most recently Hassane said Chad had signed an exploration and development deal in January with Taiwan’s state-run Chinese Petroleum Corp. “Our strategy is to maximize our oil income,” said Hassane, an oil geologist, who added that the government planned to create a national oil company this year.
Oil revenues account for 87 percent of government revenues in Chad, one of the world’s poorest countries.
“Imagine what it will mean if we get to 400,000 bpd,” Hassane said.
The ExxonMobil-led consortium, which includes Chevron and Malaysia’s Petronas and already operates five fields in the Doba basin, received concessions last December for three new fields - M’Biku, Belanga and Mangara.
