Libya's leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi has offered to plug the investment gap in neighbouring Chad left by departing multinational oil firms, AFP reported.
"We are capable. We can buy the drills and the machinery, and we can get the oil from Chad and make Chad rich in spite of its enemies," Gaddafi said at a news conference in Tripoli, in the presence of visiting Chadian president Idriss Deby.
In November, oil giants Royal Dutch Shell and Elf announced that they were reviewing their participation in a US $3-billion pipeline to lift oil from the Doba basin in south-west Chad to loading facilities off Cameroon's Atlantic coast.
Environmental groups have lobbied aggressively for the cancellation of the project. Rumours of the planned withdrawal brought thousands of protestors onto the streets of Ndjamena as the pipeline is expected to bring substantial social and economic benefits.
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