South Sudan’s Oil Flow Not Impacted By Unrest In Sudan

Oil flow from South Sudan has not been affected by the political turmoil in its neighbor to the north, Sudan, the oil minister of South Sudan, Ezekiel Lul Gatkuoth, has told Reuters.

Last week, Omar al-Bashir, long-term President of Sudan, was toppled from power by the military and placed under “heavy guard”, following months of protests against the government and its handling of a severe economic crisis in the country.

Sudan’s Defense Minister Awad Mohamed Ahmed Ibn Auf said that there would be a two-year transition period of military rule and a council governing the country. Presidential elections will be held after the transition period expires.

Sudan, a relatively small African oil producer, has been plagued by economic hardships since South Sudan seceded in 2011. South Sudan broke from Sudan that year and took with it around 350,000 bpd in oil production.

After South Sudan’s secession from Sudan, the two countries have been mutually dependent on oil revenues, because the south has 75 percent of the oil reserves, while the north has the only current transport route for the oil to international markets.

After the coup in Sudan, oil flows normally from South Sudan as of Saturday, minister Gatkuoth said.

“The technical teams from both sides in South Sudan and Sudan are cooperating very well and nothing is alarming at all,” he told Reuters.

Earlier this year, Gatkuoth said that South Sudan was looking to pump more than 350,000 bpd of oil by the middle of next year, compared to current production levels of around 140,000 bpd.

By the end of 2019, South Sudan expects its oil production to nearly double from the current 140,000 bpd to 270,000 bpd, Gatkuoth told Reuters in February this year. By the middle of 2020, the country aims to restore production to the pre-civil war levels, he noted.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

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