Chad-Cameroon Pipeline

In June and July 2000, the World Bank and the European Investment Bank approved loans for the drilling of oil wells in Chad and the construction of a pipeline through neighbouring Cameroon. Specifically, the loans were designed to support one of the largest private sector investments on the African continent: the development of 300 oil wells in Chad and the construction of a 1070-kilometre pipeline to the Atlantic coast of Cameroon.

The EIB supported the pipeline project with five loans totalling EUR 35.7 million to the government of Cameroon, EUR 20,3 million to the government of Chad, EUR 34 million to Chevron and EUR 54 million to Exxon.

This project is intended to show that oil exploitation can alleviate poverty, but it is has become one of the most controversial ventures in the history of both the EIB and the World Bank. Throughout the campaign (still ongoing) against this project, international NGOs and major donor governments have repeatedly warned that the project will in fact have adverse impacts on local people and the environment.

According to the World Bank, however, the Chad-Cameroon Oil and Pipeline project has been the most closely scrutinised project in the Bank's history. As a result, special efforts have been made to "get this project right" in order to protect the Bank's credibility.

Currently construction of the project has been completed ahead of schedule but the social and environmental measures intended to ensure development benefits continue to suffer serious delays and threaten to undermine the poverty alleviation goals of the project. The World Bank’s official project monitoring bodies, the International Advisory Group and the External Compliance Monitoring Group, document in detail many of the project’s serious problems. In addition, the World Bank s Inspection Panel has found serious violations of World Bank policies, especially in the area of environmental assessment and public health.

The EIB did not set up independent monitoring bodies of its own.