Chad fighting hits oil prospecting, not output

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By Alistair Thomson and Moumine Ngarmbassa

N'DJAMENA, Feb 11 (Reuters) - A rebel attack on Chad's capital a week ago did not affect the country's 140,000-160,000 barrels per day (bpd) of oil output but the violence disrupted prospecting and plans for a new refinery, the oil minister said.

"Production has continued as normal," Oil Minister Emmanuel Nadingar said on Monday amid burned papers and broken furniture at his ministry building, which was looted following the Feb. 2-3 assault on N'Djamena by eastern rebels.

Prospecting by China's state oil company CNPC in the Bongor Basin southeast of N'Djamena had been disrupted since expatriate workers fled during the heavy fighting in the city, he said.

"Most of their personnel are based here in N'Djamena...they were evacuated," Nadingar told Reuters.

Dozens of Chinese expatriate oil workers have been living at a game lodge in Waza National Park across the border in neighbouring Cameroon since the violence.

Taiwan's OPIC has continued prospecting in southern Chad, which was unaffected by the week-long rebel advance across the former French colony, Nadingar said.

OPIC had secured a research contract before President Idriss Deby broke off ties with Taipei in favour of Beijing.

It is prospecting in the Doba basin, near Chad's only existing production facilities which are operated by a consortium led by U.S. oil major Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM.N).

The U.S.-led consortium exports crude from landlocked Chad via a pipeline to Cameroon's Atlantic coast.

Nadingar said plans to start work on a new 60,000 bpd refinery within the next month or two were likely to be delayed because of the recent fighting.

"There are contracts to finalise. That will slip a bit," he said.

The refinery, which had been expected to take three years to build and to start operating around 2011 with an initial capacity of 20,000 bpd, is a joint venture between Chad's state oil company SHT and China's CNPC.



PROSPECTING RECORDS LOST

As Nadingar spoke, the noise of cleaning could be heard in the ministry, along with the thump of sacks of rescued documents dropped from upstairs windows onto rough ground outside.

Like many public buildings, the four-storey oil ministry, which passes for a high-rise in dusty N'Djamena, was pillaged and partially burnt after the fighting.

Tabe Eugene N'Gaoulam, secretary-general of the ministry, said prospecting records dating back to the 1950s had been lost.

Nadingar said some records were backed up at other government buildings and the oil companies that had carried out the geological research should be able to provide copies of the rest.

"That will take time, but we will get there," he said. (Editing by Pascal Fletcher and Anthony Barker)