(khaleejtimes) DUBAI – The breakaway region of Sudan, to be known from July 9 as the Republic of Southern Sudan (RoSS), is planning an oil pipeline through Ethiopia as one of its option to circumvent the 2005 oil sharing agreement with Khartoum, South Sudan\u2019s oil minister Dr Luol Deng said in Dubai on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Producing more than 70 per cent of Sudan\u2019s oil, the South Sudanese administration feels the 2005 agreement, which calls for a 50-50 sharing of oil revenue between the two entities, is unfair and cannot be implemented.<\/p>\n
However, all the oil refineries, storage facilities and ports lie in the Khartoum controlled territory, which receives the crude through two pipelines.<\/p>\n
\u201cOil sharing has been one of the highly contested issues between us (North and South) and we have had continuous discussion over this. For now we will continue with the current mechanism and use North\u2019s facilities, but in the future as we gain independence and pump more oil these two pipelines would be insufficient, that is why we are planning to have another one through Ethiopia,\u201d said Dr Deng.<\/p>\n
As South Sudan becomes the latest entrant to the list of free countries, the oil rich nation\u2019s top officials are working overtime to drum up support and investment from across the world, particularly for its much-sought after oil industry. Part of Vice-president Riek Machar\u2019s entourage to the UAE, Dr Deng made his comments as he sought investments from UAE to boost his country\u2019s fledgling economy.<\/p>\n
He added that though South has more explored oil reserves, the North has greater potential reserves and should seek to explore those \u201crather than contesting with us over what we have.\u201d<\/p>\n
Explaining further why they can\u2019t stick to the 2005 oil sharing agreement he said: \u201cCurrently Sudan is under sanctions and that impacts oil export, if we continue to stick with them then our revenues would also get affected. We have our priorities and we can\u2019t let that happen, so we request North to explore their reserves. At the same time we have also requested the US to lift sanctions so that together we realise our potential fully.\u201d<\/p>\n
Currently, the combined production of Sudan\u2019s oil is at 500,000 barrels per day \u2014 third in Sub-Saharan Africa behind Nigeria and Angola \u2014 and it is expected to jointly produce with the North one million barrels per day in the next five years.<\/p>\n
Presently, South Sudan\u2019s only source of income is oil and the administration feels the country has the resources to change that. The landlocked country has millions of acres of fertile land and importantly enough water to work the land as well. The Vice-President says the country has wildlife greater than those of Kenya and Tanzania \u2014 two countries famous for its wildlife tourism.<\/p>\n
The country is also seeking investment to produce electricity and is currently in talks with UAE authorities in this regard. Courting investors he said that ownership laws in the country are lenient and lands and companies could be owned in totality or through joint venture, depending on the region and area of the country.<\/p>\n
The UAE would be hosting an investment and trade conference on South Sudan in the month of October.<\/p>\n
shafaat@khaleejtimes.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
(khaleejtimes) DUBAI – The breakaway region of Sudan, to be known from July 9 as the Republic of Southern Sudan (RoSS), is planning an oil pipeline through Ethiopia as one of its option to circumvent the 2005 oil sharing agreement with Khartoum, South Sudan\u2019s oil minister Dr Luol Deng said in Dubai on Tuesday. Producing more than 70 per cent of Sudan\u2019s oil, the South Sudanese administration feels the 2005 agreement, which calls for a 50-50 sharing of oil revenue between the two entities, is unfair and cannot be implemented. However, all the oil refineries, storage facilities and ports lie<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amharic.zehabesha.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amharic.zehabesha.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amharic.zehabesha.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amharic.zehabesha.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amharic.zehabesha.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28126"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amharic.zehabesha.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28126\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amharic.zehabesha.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amharic.zehabesha.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amharic.zehabesha.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}