CNPC Defies Niger’s Junta, Keeps Drilling Oil Flow, Despite Rising Tensions

In the sun-scorched plains of Niger’s Agadem basin, the pumps have not stopped humming. China’s state-owned oil giant CNPC, continues to extract and export crude despite a widening rift with the country’s new military rulers. This is a defiance that undermines both Beijing’s sturdy economic stakes and Niger’s fragile struggle for sovereignty.

CNPC first arrived in Niger in the early 2000s, promising prosperity through oil. The company discovered and developed the Agadem oilfield, built a refinery in southern Niger, and laid a 2,000-kilometre pipeline snaking through the bush to a Benin port. With over $5 billion already sunk into the venture, production began in 2011 at 20,000 barrels per day (bpd). Recent expansions have boosted that figure to 90,000 bpd, a country’s lifeline yet starved of revenue and recognition.

But since the 2023 coup that toppled President Mohamed Bazoum, the partnership has soured. The junta, led by General Abdourahmane Tchiani, now head of a five-year transitional government, wants a bigger say in the oil wealth flowing beneath Niger’s deserts. It has ordered CNPC to increase local hiring to 80% and narrow the yawning pay gap between Nigerien workers and Chinese expatriates. At present, locals make up less than a third of the workforce.