Happy end: Chadian Ambassador to Yaounde expected to resume work!.

The seeming resolution of the fracas is now visible, following the return of the Chadian Ambassador to Yaounde.

The senior diplomat was expected to resume work in Yaounde Wednesday June 7.

A day before, the Ambassador was expected to regain his office, Ibrahim Adam Mahamat, the Spokesman for the Chadian Foreign Ministry, announced the official end of the dispute that climaxed April 20, with the recall of the Ambassador.

Adam Mahamat had recalled that the tension peaked on that day after the Chadian government, in an April 20 statement, expressed its dissatisfaction with the recent developments in the management of the Chad-Cameroon pipeline.

It was gathered that N´Djamena had found it unfair that the Cameroon National Hydrocarbons Company, SNH, and the British Savannah Energy, had signed an agreement under which SNH would acquire 10% of Savannah Midstream’s (subsidiary of Savannah Energy) shares in Cameroon Oil Transportation Company, COTCO. 

N'Djamena said the agreement reflected a new rapprochement between Cameroon and its "enemy", especially since they pledged in their agreement to "support each other".

The agreement particularly triggered Chad’s anger, insofar as, through the deal between SNH and Savannah Energy, Cameroon implicitly recognises the British junior's ownership of the Chadian oil assets purchased from Exxon Mobil. 

N’Djamena has therefore nationalised the assets in question to halt the deal. N'Djamena is also criticising the Cameroonian authorities for failing to issue a no-objection to the CEMAC Competition Council to facilitate the acquisition of Petronas’ assets in Chad by the Chadian Oil and Gas Corporation, SHT. 

The said transaction will enable Chad to take control of COTCO, with 53.7% of the share capital.

SNH-Savannah Energy deal

On April 26, 2023, President Paul Biya had sent the Secretary General at the Presidency of the Republic, SGPR, Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh, to N'Djamena to hand over a sealed envelope to General Mahamat Idriss Deby, President of the transitional council of the Chad.  

“We have talked with Chadian authorities. All the issues have been addressed and the misunderstandings cleared up,” Ngoh Ngoh had said, suggesting that the situation was already under control. 

On May 11, 2023, the CEMAC Competition Council gave the green light sealing the deal between SHT and Petronas, thus confirming that Cameroon had finally issued a no-objection. 

Four days later, the then President of the CEMAC Commission, Daniel Ona Ondo, signed the decision authorising the deal.

However, the CEMAC authorities' approval is subject to a series of commitments to be made by the Chadian party to ensure that its dominant position does not harm the interests of the other parties involved. 

Indeed, CEMAC authorities demand that part of the Chadian shares in COTCO be transferred to Cameroon. 

According to reliable sources, the details of this transaction were discussed during a recent mission to Yaounde led by Gali Ngothe Gatta, Minister Secretary General of the Presidency of the Republic of Chad. 

The mission focused on the deal between SNH and Savannah Energy and ways to avoid triggering a new crisis with Chad, whose intention is to expel Savannah Energy completely from COTCO's shareholding.

The return of the Ambassador confirms the assurance given by Dr Galin, when he led a delegation to Yaounde, that clouds surrounding diplomatic corridors between Yaounde and N’Djamena had been cleared. 

“We had some issues over the management of petrol, but it was important that, after the visit of the Cameroon Minister of State to Chad, that I come here to confirm the willingness of the two Heads of State to normalise relations in some essential issues that created some differences,” Dr Galin had disclosed.