Cameroon: oil royalties, taxes and Chad-Cameroon pipeline transit fees

The 2019 Petroleum Code

Law No. 2019/008 instituted Cameroon's Petroleum Code ⁶. Section 14(1) allows three kinds of petroleum contract: concession contracts, production sharing contracts and risk service contracts ¹.

Under a production sharing contract, cost oil reimburses the holder's recoverable petroleum costs. The rest, called profit oil, is split between the State and the holder as the contract sets out (Section 17) ¹.

Section 7 lets the State take an interest in all or part of petroleum operations on the terms of the contract. The interest takes effect from the grant of the exploitation authorization ¹.

Royalty, taxes and bonuses

Concession holders pay a monthly royalty tied to production. The rate and calculation rules are set in the concession contract and may differ for liquid and gaseous hydrocarbons. Payment may be in kind or in cash (Section 103) ¹.

The company tax rate on income from exploration and exploitation operations is 35% (Section 107(1)) ¹. Concession holders pay an additional petroleum or gas levy on profits on terms set in the contract (Section 109) ¹.

Contracts must provide for a signature bonus and a production bonus, with amounts set in each contract (Section 108). Holders owe an annual surface rental set by the finance law (Section 102) ¹.

The 2023 EITI report records 277.10 billion FCFA of petroleum company tax received in 2023 ².

SNH and the State's crude

SNH, the state oil company, recovered 774.89 billion FCFA for the State in 2023 from selling crude received in kind, before petroleum costs ². Of the net amount, 622.84 billion FCFA, or 80%, went to the State budget ².

That sum was 437.47 billion FCFA of direct transfers to the Treasury and 185.37 billion FCFA of indirect transfers, which are budget expenses SNH paid for the State ².

The EITI country page says SNH publishes a model production sharing contract and discloses oil production and the State's in-kind revenue in open format ³. The same page notes SNH is named in the Glencore corruption affair. SNH said in a May 2022 press release that it does not take part in such practices ³.

Chad-Cameroon pipeline transit fees

Crude on the Chad-Cameroon pipeline is lifted at the KK1 terminal ⁴. COTCO pays Cameroon transit rights ². The Petroleum Code bars discriminatory transport tariffs for comparable products and says tariffs are set by regulation and in petroleum contracts (Section 55) ¹.

Cameroon's pipeline monitoring committee CPSP reported on 29 November 2022 that 38.6 million barrels were lifted at the terminal from 1 January to 31 October 2022 ⁴. It linked the rise in transit fees mainly to the US dollar exchange rate ⁴.

As reported by Aristide Nguemadji of Tchadinfos on 28 May 2026, citing EcoMatin, Cameroon collected more than 12.2 billion FCFA in transit fees from January to April 2026 on 16.10 million barrels ⁵. The report estimated the fee at about US$1.32 a barrel in recent years, set by convention ⁵.

Cameroon in the EITI

The Cameroon 2023 EITI report was published in December 2025 ². It puts unreconciled cash differences at 800 million FCFA, about 0.08% of revenue declared by the State ².

Cameroon scored 53 points, rated Fairly low, in Validation under the 2019 EITI Standard. The Board decision is dated 29 February 2024 ³. The EITI country page says Cameroon was suspended for inadequate stakeholder engagement ³.

Citing the 2021 EITI report, the EITI page says the extractive sector made up 16.34% of government revenue and 31.15% of exports ³.