Cameroon has signed an agreement worth some 230 billion CFA francs ($438 million) with a consortium and Houston-based Govind Development to build an oil pipeline from its petroleum hub Limbe to other cities, the energy ministry said on Tuesday.

The 355 km (220 mile) pipeline will ease supply and bring down the cost of transporting petroleum products in the country, the ministry said.

"The partnership agreement covers the design, financing, construction, operation and maintenance of the pipeline system to transport petroleum products from Limbe to (the capital) Yaounde," the statement said.

The Nigerian and South African consortium, Petroleum Products Pipeline SA (3PL), will lead the construction of the main pipeline from Limbe in the South-West Region to Yaounde, passing through the economic capital Douala.

Govind will construct branches of the pipeline to the provincial capitals of Bamenda and Bafoussam in the North-West and Western Regions respectively, the statement said.

It added that about 30 per cent of the construction will be funded by the consortium which will manage the pipeline for 27 years.

Crude oil in the relatively small oil producer in the Gulf of Guinea is refined in the coastal city of Limbe from where it is distributed mostly by trucks to the rest of the country.