A pipeline to link Niger and Benin

/ Oil & Gas / Tuesday, 29 January 2019 10:12

Niger and Benin have signed an agreement to build a pipeline between the two countries to export Nigerian oil, expecting works to begin this year, said the Nigerian Ministry of Oil.

The agreement was initialed in Niamey by Nigerian oil minister Foumakoye Gado and Beninese Water and Mines minister, Samou Séidou Adambi, reported the Niger state radio reported.

“We hope that the construction of the surface infrastructure and the pipeline will actually begin in 2019,” Foumakoye Gado spoke to the radio. He wishes that “approval” on the feasibility study and the establishment of a transport company will “follow fairly quickly” in order to accelerate the construction of the pipeline.

The minister did not specify the costs and technical characteristics of the pipeline delivering crude oil to the port of Cotonou from the Agadem fields (south-eastern Niger) where the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) is extracting oil since 2011.

The oil zone in the Diffa region (south-east) has since 2015 been the victim of deadly incursions by Boko Haram jihadists based in neighboring Nigeria. Last November, eight civilians from a team of drillers and technicians from the French Foraco company were massacred in this area during an attack by Boko Haram.

Black gold has so far been piped to Zinder (south-central Niger), where it is refined. To increase its production of “black gold” -currently only 20,000 barrels per day- Niger has signed in 2018 an agreement to exploit a second oil well with CNPC, allowing it to reach a “global production of 110,000 barrels per day”, according to Foumakoye Gado.

Niger, which is one of the poorest countries in the world, is also rich in uranium and gold.

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