Chadian crude oil export in 2014 up on year, report says

Crude oil exported by Chad to world markets throughout 2014 rose sharply from a year earlier, according to a statement released Tuesday by a Cameroonian group that oversees the Chad-Cameroon oil pipeline.

Cameroon's Pipeline Steering and Monitoring Committee said Chadian crude oil exports from Jan. 1 to Oct. 31 stood at 27.56 million barrels, up from 24.55 million barrels of crude oil the landlocked country exported between January and November 2013.

Chad has since 2003 exported its crude from its southern oil fields in Doba through the Chad/Cameroon pipeline that snakes through Cameroon to the Atlantic port town of Kribi.

According to the report signed by Adolphe Moudiki, PSMC chairman and executive general manager of Cameroon's state oil company National Hydrocarbons Co., Cameroon's royalties rose to 17.53 billion Central African francs ($33 million) for the oil exports in 2014, a sharp increase from the XAF5.84 billion Cameroon earned as royalties accrued from the previous year's Chadian crude exports.

The rise in this year's earnings were driven by a November 2013 agreement by both parties on an increase in the quota Chad had to pay for each barrel of oil exported through Cameroon as from 2014.

The two countries had agreed that, beginning in 2014, Chad would be taxed XAF618 per barrel of oil exported through the pipeline, up from XAF195/barrel it paid Cameroon for each barrel shipped through the pipeline during the last decade.

The Chad-Cameroon oil pipeline, which began operation in October 2003, has exported an estimated 476 million barrels of crude since it was built. It is being operated by Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM), Chevron Corp. (CVX) and Malaysia's Petroliam Nasional Bhd.