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By Ali Abba Kaya KOME (AFP) - Chad's hopes of an oil bonanza are taking shape in the red soil of the Savannah, which has been cleared by bulldozers at this site 400 kilometers (240 miles) south of the capital Ndjamena. "We have suffered too much from repeated rebellions. Now our children will at long last enjoy stability and prosperity," said a doddering old man from Kome who has scratched a living from the earth over the years. Chad's dream of riches began 30 years ago after the discovery of an oil field in the south. The country, one of Africa's poorest, is divided into a nomadic Islamized north and a black Christianized south. The country has long been torn apart by rivalries between warlords from the mountainous Tibesti desert, some backed by neighboring Libya, others by former colonial power France. Last Wednesday, the people of the nearby town of Doba turned out to watch Chadian President Idriss Deby and his Cameroonian counterpart Paul Biya lay the first stone for the massive building site. For the oil dream to become reality, a 1,050-kilometer (600-mile) pipeline will have to be built between Kome and the Atlantic oil terminal at Kribi, in Cameroon, to the dismay of ecologists. The scheme's promoters have ignored their dire predictions of disaster. The pipeline will not be completed before 2003, according to the Esso-Chevron-Petronas consortium, charged with extracting Chad's oil. Chadian and U.S. workers have set up house in prefabricated air-conditioned containers that have been set down on the red laterite soil in the savannah countryside that Chad shares with its southern neighbors, Cameroon and the Central African Republic. Local farmers try to sell the workers their produce - cassava, millet and groundnuts - while being supervised by the site's security personnel. A 3,200-meter runway capable of handling big transport planes will soon replace the dirt airstrip that saw the arrival of the official delegations. No fewer than 315 wells will be drilled to bring up the oil from the Doba field, which is estimated to contain enough oil for 25 years of extraction with production peaks of 225,000 barrels a day. According to the World Bank, Chad can expect revenues of $2 billion a year, a boon for a country dependent on stock-raising and cotton cultivation, and impoverished by the encroaching desert. The project, which will require roads to be resurfaced and bridges built, is expected to create between 3,000 and 4,000 jobs. |
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