Chad has accused the consortium running a multi-billion dollar oil project in the country of breaking a joint agreement, notably by selling Chadian oil at knock-down prices.

In a statement released on yesterday, Chad's presidency said a convention agreed in 1998 with the consortium of Malaysia's Petronas and US firms ExxonMobil and Chevron had been "unilaterally called into question."

The statement was entitled: "Chadian oil: swindling, murkiness and fraud by the consortium in the exploitation of Doba crude."

"The sale price of Chadian oil is less than US$20, yet the barrel price is US$50 on the international market today. This practice puts considerable strain on the meagre resources Chad expects of its oil," the statement said.

Much-needed cash

The government said that between October 2003, when the oil began flowing, and August 2004, 50 million barrels had reached the market via the consortium for a turnover of US$900 million - or US$18 dollars a barrel - from which Chad received US$70 million.

"Oil revenues from January 2004 to the present day are calculated on the basis of a price of about US$25 a barrel proposed by the consortium, a price that does not meet with the approval of the oil ministry," the statement said.

"Despite a call to order issued repeatedly by the Chadian government ... there has been only silence and a manifest refusal to respect previous undertakings," the statement added.

The Doba fields in the oil-rich south of Chad were officially opened almost exactly a year ago.

Over the next 25 years, an estimated 900 million barrels are expected to flow from Doba to Cameroon's Atlantic port of Kribi, bringing in much-needed cash. The average income of Chad's seven million people is less than a dollar day.