Chad joins the oil club: after years of waiting, and many months of battling with environmental and human rights groups, Chad has finally become an oil producer.

Chad has finally struck it lucky, becoming the latest member of Africa's oil club. On 10 October, in front of thousands of dignitaries (including African leaders), the Chadian president, Idriss Deby(photo, right), officially opened the 650-mile oil pipeline that now carries Chadian oil through desert and forest to Cameroon's offshore Kribi oil terminal for shipment abroad.

The occasion was a joyous one, leading optimists to predict that Chad's era of wealth and development had finally arrived. But the pessimists pointed to the plight of the other African oil producers, and warned Chad to be wary of a false dawn. The pipeline, when fully operational, will carry 225,000 barrels a day, earning Chad an annual revenue of $80m, and increasing government income by 50% overnight. No wonder, President Deby was estactic. "Oil," he said, "will bless, not ruin, the country", and warned that "the coming oil income should not divert us from our usual economic activities. We must build a modern and working Chad together. I know that in a country marked by 30 years of pain, violence and the misdeeds of dictatorship, the restoration of peace is lengthy work."

Chad's oil industry is backed by three main multinational companies--ExxonMobil which has a 40% stake, Malaysia's Petronas 35% and Chevron 25%. Over $3.7 billion was spent drilling 300 oil wells in the Doba basin of the country.

The World Bank provided $200m after initially withholding its support due to pressure from environmental and human rights groups who feared that Chad, without may checks and balances, might go the way of Africa's oil giants, Nigeria, Angola, Gabon and Equatorial Guinea, where oil money has brought little change to the majority of the people, because the buck of the money has gone into the pockets of the elite.

President Deby's government had to assure the World Bank that all would be well by passing a law committing 80% of the oil revenue to health, education, agriculture and infrastructure, and also setting up a revenue watchdog to keep track of the oil money.

The fears of misapplying the oil revenue were such that Shell and Elf pulled out of the project in 1999 without any explanation. The IMF then asked the government for early repayment of a $7.6m facility, claiming the government had submitted "erroneous information" about its spending.

But all was forgotten on 10 October when President Deby opened a spigot linked to the pipeline, and the first Chadian oil to reach the Atlantic coast sped through it.