Following last week’s coup of President Bazoum, the regional group imposed punitive sanctions on Niger on Sunday.
Authorities in Benin said on Thursday that sanctions imposed by West Africa’s regional grouping on neighbouring Niger in response to last week’s military coup have not hampered building on a major oil pipeline connecting the two nations, but may cause a delay.
The 15-member Economic Community of West African States announced severe sanctions on Niger on Sunday, including border closures and the suspension of all financial and commercial connections with the country. On Monday, the Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO) cancelled Niger’s planned 30-billion-CFA-franc ($51m) bond offering.
The PetroChina-backed export pipeline project will connect Niger’s Agadem oilfield to Benin’s Cotonou port. The total investment in the almost 2,000km (1,243-mile) pipeline, including the Adadem field’s second phase development, is estimated to be $4 billion.
Niger, which now produces roughly 20,000 barrels of oil per day (bpd), intends to increase output to approximately 110,000 bpd, with approximately 90,000 bpd exported through the pipeline.
“The current political situation has nothing to do with the execution of the project,” Alassane Kora, deputy chief of staff to Benin’s mines and energy minister, told Reuters.
“This means that work is currently being done in Niger and Benin.” The schedule may simply be delayed. Otherwise, under normal circumstances, the first drops, the earliest testing, should have been completed by October or early November,” Kora stated.
Separately, Benin government spokesperson Wilfried Leandre Houngbedji told Reuters that border constraints enforced by the West African union will not impact pipeline construction.
However, there are indicators that the border restriction is affecting areas of the economy in Benin’s northern border town of Malanville, according to Cherif Babio, a spokesperson for the mayor’s office.
“On the day after the decision to impose sanctions, trucks in transit passed through.” “However, those who arrived later are currently blocked at the corridor,” Babio explained.
ECOWAS also imposed a no-fly zone over Niger, and Nigeria, which supplies Niger with 70% of its power, cut off power supply.
General Abdourahamane Tchiani, the self-proclaimed leader of Niger’s military government, remained defiant late Wednesday, saying he “refuses to give in to any threats, wherever they come from.” ECOWAS sanctions were “illegal, unfair, inhuman, and unprecedented,” he added.
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