Chinese and Nigerien workers haul giant steel pipes over mounds of earth as heavily armed soldiers keep guard.
At Gaya in southwest Niger, near the border with Benin, the longest oil pipeline in Africa is being built.
With a projected length of nearly 2,000 kilometres (1,240 miles) — including 1,250 km in Niger itself — the pipeline will connect oil wells in the eastern region of Agadem, a zone troubled by deadly jihadist incursions, with the Beninese port of Seme.
Climate campaigners are clamouring for an end to investment in carbon-spewing fossil fuels.
But in Niger — the poorest country in the world according to the benchmark of the UN’s Human Development Index — this project is seen as an economic lifeline.
The landlocked West African state became an oil producer in 2011. The China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), exploiting the reserves, has been sending oil by pipeline to refineries in Zinder in south-central Niger.
For exports, Niger initially planned to ship crude through the Cameroonian port of Kribi via neighbouring Chad.
It eventually opted for the “Beninese corridor” terminating on the northern rim of the Gulf of Guinea.
Launched in 2019, the project was supposed to be completed in 2022, but the Covid-19 pandemic slowed it down, said Nafiou Issaka, deputy general manager of the West African Oil Pipeline Company (WAPCO).
More than 600 km of pipeline has already been laid, and Niger is on track to sell crude on the international market from next July, according to the ministry of petroleum and energy.
More than 700 soldiers have been deployed to ensure security for the project, though a large part of the territory it crosses has so far been spared from jihadist violence, according to a security source who asked not to be named.
Niger has long been a major producer of uranium, ranked in global 7th place in 2021 with a total output of 2,248 tonnes, after a year-over-year decline in the past decade, according to the World Nuclear Association.
But uranium revenues continue to fall and the country’s leaders are banking on oil to boost the national budget, much of which is devoted to the fight against jihadists in the southeast and the west. (France24)