Cotco completes work on Chad-Cameroon pipeline at Lom Pangar dam

The Cameroon Oil Transportation Company (Cotco), which manages the Chad-Cameroon pipeline on the Cameroon side, completed successfully, the adaptation of the pipeline to the construction of the Lom Pangar dam project, announced the company and the Government of Cameroon.

This work has been made by the company under Italian law SICIM, following a contract signed on April 3, 2012 with Cotco.

Specifically, explained Christian Lenoble, the DG of Cotco, these works involved the strengthening of two sections of the pipeline, 13 Km long each and buried on the site of construction of the Lom Pangar dam. This would permit, specified the DG of Cotco, that this portion of the pipeline "supports the pillars of water over 20 meters that will be there when the dam will be completed".

As a reminder, the financing of this work of adaptation was the subject of a standoff for three years (2008-2011), between the Cameroonian Government and Cotco, operator of the pipeline irefusing to contribute to the financing of the project, whose total cost is estimated at 49.4 billion Cfa francs.

"You have until noon tomorrow to reach agreement. The hotel in which we are has enough rooms to host us all until an agreement is found," said Essimi Menye, then Minister of finance, during a final round of negotiations on 5 July 2011, in Yaoundé.

He added, a furious strand: "at the time of building the pipeline, you knew that a dam will be built on the site, but nothing has been done to avoid this part of the site. Now that it is necessary to move the pipeline, should we share loads. The State cannot do it all alone".

Finally, November 1, 2013, after negotiation, Alamine Ousmane Mey, became Minister of finance, and the company Cotco, signned a "transactional agreement relating to the key of the final cost of the project for the adaptation of the Chad-Cameroon pipeline at Lom Pangar dam".

This agreement stipulates that the share of the oil company (between 23 and 25 billion Cfa francs) in this project pre-financed by the Cameroonian Government, must be paid no later than "within a period of two (02) months from administrative and financial completion of the work and, in any case, at the latest within a period of six (6) months from the signing of the minutes of receipt of the work", or no later than November 30, 2014.