Côte d’Ivoire’s oil sector lost 30% in potential revenue in 2003 owing to the political and military crisis that has divided the west African state for 17 months, officials said on Tuesday.
”This decrease in activity represents a loss of 100-billion CFA francs (153-million euros, $196-million) in potential revenue for the sector,” said Alain Kouadio, secretary general of the Ivorian petroleum association (GPP).
Before the crisis, annual revenue from the group’s 444 pumping stations — around 100 of which are located in the rebel-held northern half of the country — exceeded 400-billion CFA francs.
But since an armed uprising to oust President Laurent Gbagbo erupted into civil war in September 2002, deliveries of petroleum products have been suspended to the rebel-held northern and western zones of the world’s top cocoa producer.
Instead, the rebel-held zones rely on petrol trucks crossing the northern border from Mali and Burkina Faso without paying customs charges.
”We know that some of our stations are being operated,” Kouadio said. ”We just don’t know by whom.”
GPP represents the interests of five oil companies, which together control 94% of the Côte d’Ivoire market — Mobil, Shell, Total, Texaco and the locally-run Petro Ivoire.
Together they provided 800-million tons of petrol to the government-held southern zone in 2003.
Côte d’Ivoire currently produces 20 000 barrels of crude oil per day, with production set to increase four-fold by 2006. – Sapa-AFP