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- Download our brochure, Profile: Chad/Chameroon — Doba Basin
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Chad/Cameroon — Doba Basin
In 1993, after years of planning, negotiations and test drilling, the first project development teams mobilized to Chad and Cameroon. Their objective: to develop the estimated 1 billion barrels of oil reserves in the Doba basin of southern Chad. Since Chad is a landlocked country, the plan also included a 665-mile (1,070 kilometers) pipeline to transport the crude oil across Chad and Cameroon to a tanker-mooring marine terminal off the Cameroonian coast.
The years of careful planning and construction effort paid off in October 2003, when the project exported its first barrel of Chadian oil. This feat was accomplished by a consortium led by Esso Exploration and Production Chad, Inc (EEPCI). The ExxonMobil affiliate has a 40 percent interest in the project, which also includes the Malaysian national oil company PETRONAS (35 percent interest) and Chevron (25 percent interest). The project has exported more than 240 million barrels of crude oil to world markets.
Hundreds of Chadians and Cameroonians have received the technical training required to build and operate the production facilities, as well as trade skills training such as carpentry and electrical work. Since 2000, EEPCI has recruited more than 100 operations technicians for its production facilities in Kome, each of whom will complete a five-year training program in preparation for a future role in operations. More than $60 million has been spent on training since 2001.
In early 2004, EEPCI opened a world-class technical training center at the Kome central oilfield facility to provide training for project employees from Chad. In addition to its international faculty, the center includes laboratories and simulators to teach students about hydraulics and electrical systems; computer classrooms; an extensive machine shop for teaching repairs and fabrication; and a technical reference library.
National workforce development
Due to our emphasis on hiring, training and promoting local workers, 88 percent of the 5,700 people employed by the project in Chad at year-end 2007 were nationals. Total direct employment in Cameroon is 1,200; 91 percent are Cameroonian. Eighty percent of the Chadians and Cameroonians hold skilled, semi-skilled or supervisory positions.
In addition to revenue generation, the most important economic effects of the project have been the transfer of technology and the creation of a new petroleum industry in Chad. The World Bank and Government of Chad developed a unique plan for the management of revenues from the oil development project that would benefit all citizens of the country. The multiplier effect of the project investment is helping to create economic development and jobs beyond the oil fields.
Local companies benefit as this project relies on in-country vendors at every opportunity. Since construction began in October 2000, more than $1.5 billion in goods and services has been spent with approximately 2,000 Chadian and Cameroonian businesses.
Since the 1993 start of the Chad/Cameroon Development Project, more than 21,000 consultation meetings involving 300,000 people have been held. Based on input from this unprecedented number of public consultations, the project was able to redesign facilities to reduce impacts on people and habitat. For example, the pipeline route was shifted more than 20 times to protect settlements and hunting grounds
of the Bagyeli-Bakola people in Cameroon. Tens of millions of dollars were spent to move the pipeline route away from environmentally sensitive areas in the Mbéré Rift Valley and Deng Deng Forest areas.
The pipeline traverses remote areas and required substantial infrastructure to come to fruition. Despite these challenges, we achieved an on-the-job safety record that is significantly better than the global average for the oil industry.
The project team has ensured transparency in compensation for the use of land that formerly comprised small farms. More than $18 million in cash and in-kind payments have been disbursed to villagers in Chadand Cameroon. The project has contributed more than $9 million to an array of community, health and environmental initiatives in Chad and Cameroon. The community compensation programs have funded new classrooms and school upgrades, community facilities such as marketplaces, water towers and wells, and farming equipment. The project partners also established extensive public health programs focused on malaria and HIV-AIDS prevention.
The ExxonMobil Foundation, through its Africa Health Initiative, has partnered with international NGOs to improve health and education in Chad. As a result, health clinics have been built or renovated and bed nets distributed to prevent the spread of malaria. Thirty-six primary schools have been renovated to include drinking water facilities, gender-specific toilet blocks and enhanced classroom infrastructure with funding from the ExxonMobil Foundation’s Educating Women & Girls Initiative. Teaching materials and improved teacher training on health, hygiene and safety are also being provided.
