ExxonMobil puts all five Chad oil rigs to work
Date: 19-Sep-02
Country: UK
Author: Raj Rajendran
"A total of 12 wells had been drilled by the end of the second quarter 2002, five of them production wells," Marcia Zelinsky said in a written reply to Reuters' inquiries.
Project operator ExxonMobil plans to drill 300 wells over the course of the estimated 25-30 years of the field's life.
The World Bank-backed $4 billion project, which has come under renewed environmental protest mostly surrounding the 1,070 kilometres pipeline from landlocked Chad to the Cameroonian coast, is slated to come onstream at the end of 2003 with peak output of 225,000 barrels per day.
The controversial pipeline, which has a capacity to transport 250,000 bpd of crude oil, will pump oil from the Doba basin oilfields in southern Chad to the Cameroonian Atlantic Ocean coast at Kribi.
Last week, the World Bank's board of directors gave its stamp of approval for the bank to back the pipeline despite an internal report suggesting it was harming the environment and missing other objectives.
The board, where representatives of the shareholder countries make decisions about loans, sided with a report by the bank's management. That report rejected the findings of the internal panel but agreed to make improvements on environmental, social, economic, poverty reduction and monitoring issues.
Non-governmental organisations have criticised the project which they say will damage the environment and have negative social and economic consequences. They said the management plan to remedy problems is vague and lacking in specific timelines.
The bank is funding $140 million of the $4 billion project.
ExxonMobil is the leader of the consortimum with a 40 percent share in the project, with Malaysia's Petronas holding 35 percent and ChevronTexaco 25 percent.
PROJECT ON TRACK
In its latest quarterly report, ExxonMobil said that more than 45 percent of the export pipeline had been welded and buried in the ground.
"Pipeline construction advanced about three kilometres per day, despite the arrival of the first storms of the rainy season as the quarter was ending," the report said.
It said work was also under way for the construction of crude oil storage tanks, pumpstations and pressure reducing stations.
Turning to environmental issues, the report said that the Wildlife Conservation Society had been chosen to oversee work on the new M'bam and Djerem National Park.
The new park in northeast Cameroon and the Campo Reserve just south of Kribi are being developed as part of the overall plan to mitigate the environmental impact of the pipeline.
The involvement of the World Bank and the IFC helped the oil companies to overcome strong environmental protest to the building of the pipeline.
Oil was first discovered in the Doba basin by Conoco in the late-1970s, but the high costs involved in developing fields so far from the coast and Chad's political instability, prevented exploitation.
Former Exxon took over the licence covering the Doba area in 1988, discovering the Bolobo field and establishing that Miandoum and Kome, which were both found by Conoco, held enough oil to warrant the pipeline.
