GreenergyDaily

Oct. 17, 2025

China's CNPC has continued to export crude from a newly expanded oilfield in Niger that has generated more than $2 billion in revenue despite disputes with government officials over hiring more local workers and improving their benefits, Reuters reported, citing sources with knowledge of the situation.

The Chinese state oil giant has been negotiating with the Nigerien government for months to tackle those issues, the sources said, after three of its senior executives were expelled in March due to disputes over a pay gap between local workers and Chinese expatriates.

The expulsions, which were followed by government letters in May ordering experienced Chinese expatriates to leave Niger, dealt a blow to CNPC. Niger is a showcase of CNPC's ability to build an oil industry from scratch in an impoverished nation. It invested more than $5 billion there, developing an oilfield, building a refinery and a 1,950-km (1,212-mile) pipeline, Africa's longest.

Oil minister Sahabi Oumarou initially asked CNPC and its refinery, SORAZ, to terminate the contracts of expatriates who had been working in Niger for more than four years, but that action has not been carried out, three Niamey-based sources told Reuters.

Among the key disputes was the Nigerien government's request to increase local hires at CNPC-led projects to 80% versus less than 30% at present, a goal that CNPC believed to be unrealistic due to a lack of trained, skilled local staff, the people said.

Niger's current junta government came to power in 2023 in a military coup and has, like several other governments in the Sahel region of north-central Africa, been seeking greater control over its natural resources.