COTCO6 Jun 2023 08:00
Pt 1 6/6/23
' ExxonMobil-Savannah: SNH boss Moudiki ups the ante in letter to Chadian oil minister
The head of Cameroon's Société Nationale des Hydrocarbures sent a scathing letter to Chad's oil minister. Since ExxonMobil's withdrawal from southern Chad, the battle between Savannah Energy and N'Djamena has rekindled a recurring conflict between Cameroon and the Chadian junta.
Chadian and Cameroonian authorities are far from seeing eye to eye on the Savannah Energy issue. Unlike Cameroon, Chad is at loggerheads with the British junior oil company. These differences in opinion were underscored on 2 June by Adolphe Moudiki, managing director of Cameroon's Société Nationale des Hydrocarbures (SNH), in a confidential document sent to Chad's oil minister, Djerassem Le Bemadjiel.
Moudiki begins the two-page letter by attacking the Chad presidency's statement, released that same day, about the general meeting held on 24 May in Paris that assembled shareholders of COTCO - the joint venture that runs the pipeline exporting Chadian crude oil in Cameroon - during which directors representing Savannah Energy were reportedly dismissed. Savannah bought ExxonMobil's shares in the Doba fields and the export pipeline via COTCO and TOTCO (in Chad) in December 2022. The Chad state, which was against the transfer, nationalised those assets on 23 March. Only COTCO's stake, which previously belonged to ExxonMobil, were unaffected by the operation.
Yaoundé ghosted in Paris?
In his letter, Moudiki asks the Chadian minister to send him, in his capacity as a COTCO shareholder, "the written resolutions, as well as the summons letter to this general meeting, and finally the board of directors' resolution approving the agenda". According to the SNH boss, his company did not take part in a general meeting in Paris on the date cited, nor did it receive a summons letter. The SNH's managing director goes on to say that "in these conditions, were such a general meeting to have taken place, resolutions arising from it would be void, because they would be in breach of COTCO's statutory rules on the summoning and holding of general meetings".
Moudiki also points out that Chad had committed to "maintaining COTCO shareholders' representation on the board, limiting the number of Chadian directors to four, handing over a part of COTCO's shares to the SNH, and not including resolutions on ordinary general meetings' agendas that concern, inter alia, the appointment of COTCO managers, other than Chadian directors". N'Djamena originally made those concessions to get the green light from the Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa (CEMAC)'s competition authorities, in order to acquire Petronas's 20% stake in the Doba-Kribi pipeline and the oil fields in southern Chad.