CAPITAL: Yaounde

MONETARY UNIT: CFA franc

REFINING CAPACITY: 35,000 b/cd

PRODUCTION: 125,000 b/d

OIL/CONDENSATE RESERVES: 400 million bbl

NATURAL GAS RESERVES: 3.9 tcf

Ste. Nationale des Hydrocarbures launched a third licensing round from Sept. 30, 1999, until Mar. 31, 2000. It included acreage in the Douala and Kribi-Campo basins offshore and the undrilled Logone Birni basin in northern Cameroon south of Lake Chad.

The International Monetary Fund asked the government to set up a system under which oil revenues would be directly deposited into the state budget. An IMF team said Cameroon`s financial and economic program met most criteria. The mission resulted from political demands for a parliamentary investigation into the management of SNH.

Canada`s Ocelot Energy was attempting to launch development of the Sanaga Sud gas discovery 10 km off Kribi. The company completed a feasibility study of a gas-power project that would back out hydroelectric energy.

Sanaga Sud reserves are about 600 bcf. The reservoir has more than 250 m of net pay and is 1,300 m deep. One or two new wells would feed a 10 in. pipeline to Kribi, where an LPG extraction plant might be built.

SNH and Carson Services, Perkasie, Pa., reached agreement for the acquisition, processing, and interpretation of 7,350 km of high quality aerogravity, magnetic, and digital topography data in the Logone-Birni area including the Cameroonese sector of Lake Chad.

The survey was to overlap most of the area covered by a seismic survey conducted by Geofyzika. Ultimate purpose was to help develop an enhanced understanding of the petroleum system and of drillable structures of potential economic interest in the Doba basin vicinity in Chad.

Cameroon continued to hope for some benefit from a pipeline that would cross its territory while shipping crude oil from Chad to a port at Kribi.

Reports circulated in late 1999 that Elf and Shell planned to withdraw from the project, leaving operator Exxon as the sole participant. The project was to tap 80-100 million bbl of oil in several fields in the Doba basin in southern Chad.