Sudan, South Sudan discuss how to re-operate halted oil fields

Khartoum : Sudan and South Sudan on Thursday discussed means of re-operating South Sudanese oil fields that were halted due to the civil war which erupted in 2013.

Sudanese capital Khartoum on Thursday hosted technical talks, chaired by under-secretaries at oil ministries in the two countries.

“These talks tend to follow up the technical aspects agreed upon and provide the technical support for re-operating the oil fields in Unity State of South Sudan together with the oil exported through the Sudanese ports,” Bakheet Ahmed Abdalla, Undersecretary of Sudan’s Ministry of Oil and Gas, told reporters.

“We have discussed the issue of training human cadres in South Sudan at Khartoum Oil Training Center,” he noted.

Mohamed Lino, Undersecretary of South Sudan’s Ministry of Petroleum, for his part, said that “the technical cooperation with Sudan is very beneficial, and through the continued consultations between us, we can implement the agreements signed by the two countries.”

Before its separation with Sudan in 2011, South Sudan’s oil production reached 245,000 barrels a day, but by late 2014 it dropped to about 160,000 barrels a day due to the ongoing civil war which broke out in the new-born state.

South Sudan has been witnessing violent armed clashes between the government army and defectors loyal to former vice-president Riek Machar since December 2013.

—NNN-Xinhua