From Bloomberg

Chad expects output of crude to more than triple by 2015 as new oil fields located near Lake Chad will start producing next year, Finance Minister Atteib Doutoum said.

Oil production may reach 200,000 barrels a day in 2014 and 300,000 barrels in 2015, Doutoum said yesterday in an interview in Abidjan, Ivory Coast’s commercial capital. Output fell to 97,000 barrels daily this year from 110,000 barrels in 2012 as “technical issues” have disrupted drilling operations, Doutoum said. These will be addressed before year-end, he said, declining to provide more information.

“Chad is going to record its second oil boom,” he said.

The central African nation’s economic growth will slow to 4 percent this year from 9 percent in 2012, the International Monetary Fund said Sept. 19. Oil provides Chad with as much as 1 trillion CFA francs ($2.1 billion) a year, or about 80 percent of its revenue, Doutoum said. The country, ruled by President Idriss Deby since he seized power in a 1990 coup, had a $10.6 billion economy in 2011, according to the World Bank’s website.

Chad on Sept. 23 issued 85 billion francs of bonds on the Libreville, Gabon-based Bourse des Valeurs Mobilieres d’Afrique Centrale and the Douala Stock Exchange in Cameroon, Doutoum told reporters yesterday. The five-year debt will be on sale until Nov. 15, he said.

Chad will use the proceeds to fund the construction of a 30-hectare (74-acre) business area in its capital, N’Djamena, Doutoum said. The project has an estimated cost of 248.4 billion CFA francs, he said.

Read more at Bloomberg.