Thread by @Frank_Stones

📯🛢️🇳🇪Niger will soon become an oil exporter after the commissioning of the longest oil pipeline in the whole Africa, reaching 🇧🇯Benin's Port of Seme.
The project has been realised with the support of🇨🇳China amid international sanctions vs🇳🇪in the aftermath of the recent coup
🧵

The new🇳🇪🇧🇯oil pipeline will connect the Agadem Rift Basin oil field with Port of Some on the Gulf of Guinea, stretching for 2,000 km and with a 90,000 barrels per day of capacity.
This will transform Niger into a significant regional oil producer and exporter.
The pipeline plan

has been approved in 2019 and aims to exploit the 1 billion barrel of oil reserves, as stated by the African Petroleum Producers' Organization.
According to🇳🇪authorities, reserves could be double this amount, leaving decades ahead to exploit oil production and exports in one of

the poorest country in the world.
According to the🇳🇪head of the oil refining sector, oil production could generate a "quarter of the country's GDP" and about 50% of Niger's tax revenue, compared to a very modest amount today.
The country is also hosting a little refinery with

around 20,000 bpd capacity.
The country's leader, general Tiani, who ousted the democratically elected Bazoum last July, says that🇳🇪 wants to refine crude "on Nigerien soil" and moving up the value-chain of the global market, looking at natural resources for supporting🇳🇪growth

During the pipeline's commissioning ceremony🇳🇪PM Ali Mahaman Lamine Zeine emphasised that the resources would be pivotal in "ensuring the sovereignty and development of our country."
All this happens in the face of ECOWAS sanctions vs🇳🇪Niger after the coup and the same border

with🇧🇯Benin is today closed.
In a show of solidarity and countering the international isolation of🇳🇪, under🇺🇸🇪🇺US & EU Western sanctions, energy ministers from🇲🇱Mali and🇧🇫Burkina Faso attended the ceremony.
Both have witnessed military coups deposing Western-aligned governments.

They cultivate closer ties with both🇷🇺Russia &🇨🇳China.
Just over a week ago,🇳🇪general Tiani received the🇷🇺 deputy defence minister Yunus-bek Yevkurov, with full honours, announcing strengthening of defence cooperation.
🇫🇷French troops just left the country
lemonde.fr/en/le-monde-af…

The estimates of🇨🇳China's state-owned CNPC investments in the exploitation of the Agadem Rift Basin and the🇳🇪🇧🇯Niger-Benin pipeline construction are around $6 billion.
According to🇳🇪Tiani, Niger will get a quarter of the oil export volumes, while the rest is likely to be used to

repay Beijing of its very risky investment in a chronically unstable region of Africa.
Around a thousand troops have been located to defend the pipeline from attacks of militants and islamists, but the security efforts will need to be proved over the long-term.

🌅Paradoxically, while #COP28UAE discusses the phase-out of fossil fuels and the negotiations for a final communiqué will be hardly fought between parties, a new African oil producer rises.