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exxon text
A new chapter in world energy markets opened
in early October when the first cargo of crude oil
from the African country of Chad was loaded
onto a tanker off the coast of Cameroon.
The story behind that first cargo is worth
the telling.
Oil was discovered 27 years ago in Chad,
a landlocked country that is one of the world’s
poorest.
The Chad oil fields are
about 650 miles from the
ocean, and major upgrading
of railways, roads and
bridges was required to get
the oil project materials on
location. The pipeline route
travels through environmentally
and socially sensitive
areas, including the rainforest
in southern Cameroon
and communities of Bakola
pygmies near the coast. The
route also lies in the area of
the world with the highest
exposure to malaria, and
one of the highest rates of
meningitis.
Chad was nearly the poorest country in
Africa, and Cameroon was only moderately better
off. Moreover, Chad suffered for many years
from civil strife and armed rebellion, a condition
that subsided only in the late 1990s.
The obstacles to oil development were so
formidable that some of the early project participants
dropped out, and were replaced by
ChevronTexaco and Petronas in 2000.
But the oil offered hope for a better future,
and a remarkable coalition of people and organizations
eventually collaborated to make the
Chad/Cameroon oil project a unique example
of energy development.
ExxonMobil and the early project partners
invited the World Bank to help fund a minority
ownership in the pipeline — which represents
about 40 percent of the project’s cost — for the
governments of Chad and Cameroon. The
World Bank then assisted Chad in designing an
unprecedented plan to ensure that oil revenues
would contribute to poverty alleviation and an
improved education system.
An extensive public
consultation process in hundreds
of villages, begun seven
years prior to the start of construction,
led to many project
changes. The pipeline was
routed to avoid villages and
cultural sites and to protect
biodiversity. People who, due
to construction, faced losses
of crops and plants used for
medicinal purposes were provided
compensation.
The project partners
helped build schools, health
clinics and community water
wells. They also put in place
extensive public health education programs focused
on malaria and HIV/AIDS prevention.
These efforts included distribution of 80,000 insecticide-
treated bed nets.
Local employment soared as 35,000
workers were employed during the project's
construction. More than $650 million was
pumped into the local economies through 2,200
Chadian and Cameroonian companies.
And so with the first oil loaded, an extraordinary
project begins to supply energy to
the world as well as a better life and a cargo of
hope to the people of Chad and Cameroon.
AI
