Chad to export oil through Cameroon pipeline

Chad and Cameroon have announced that work is to start in April on a pipeline to carry Chadian oil through Cameroon to the Atlantic coast.

The one thousand-kilometre pipeline will run from the Doba basin oilfields in southern Chad to the port of Kribi.

The Chadian government hopes that by the year two thousand, the oilfields will be producing two hundred thousand barrels of oil a day.

The BBC West Africa correspondent says chronic political instability in the oil region will have to be solved before substantial development can begin.

He says that Chad will remain a relatively small oil producer, but that if the oil revenues are well managed they could be used to develop the country.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service