The landlocked country of Niger has recommenced exporting crude oil through Benin after a friction between the countries halted the flow of oil through a new Chinese-funded pipeline to the West African coast. This was according to a report by the pipeline company agent and ship tracking data on Wednesday.
The friction between both countries had been over Niger’s refusal to withdraw the ban on imported goods from Benin, causing its coastal neighbour to block exports through the PetroChina-backed pipeline in May.
In retribution, Niger shut off the flow of oil through the pipeline in June.
An agent with the West African Gas Pipeline Company (WAPCO), an operator of the pipeline, had told Reuters on Wednesday that a Liberian-flagged crude oil tanker, Aura M, had loaded around one million barrels of oil from Niger at the Benin port on Tuesday. A ship tracking data from MarineTraffic, a global maritime analytics provider, had confirmed this, showing that the vessel was loaded and departed the Benin port on Tuesday afternoon.
The data showed that it was bound for China and was due to arrive on October 10. At press time, it was last spotted on Tuesday in the Gulf of Guinea, just off the West African coast.
The WAPCO-operated pipeline has a capacity of 90,000 barrels per day and it began operations earlier this year. It stretches for nearly 2,000 km (1,243 miles) from Niger’s Agadem oilfield to Benin’s coast.
It was not immediately clear on Wednesday, how the dispute had been settled, to allow Niger’s oil exports to resume as efforts to reach the Nigerien and Benin officials were not successful.
Niger’s crude oil exports via the pipeline have been agreed as part of a $400 million deal with oil giant China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC).
