S.Sudan says keep exporting oil to Sudan despite stoppage threat
Mon Jun 10, 2013 3:11pm EDT
By Hereward Holland
(Reuters) - South Sudan continues to export oil to Sudan despite a threat
from its African neighbor to stop cross-border flows in a row over alleged
support fo(Reuters): r rebels, its oil minister said on Monday.
Sudan said on Sunday it would close the two export pipelines with the
African neighbor within two months unless Juba gave up any support for
insurgents operating across the shared border.
The row, the latest in a series of problems between the former civil war
foes, threatens to hit supplies to Asian buyers such as
<
http://www.reuters.com/places/china> China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC),
India's ONCG Videsh and Malaysia's Petronas, which run the oilfields in both
countries.
The landlocked South, which has to use Sudan's pipelines and port facilities
to sell its crude, has piped around 7 million barrels of crude to its
neighbor since resuming production in April, Oil Minister Stephen Dhieu Dau
told reporters.
"This is increasing every day. This is not the final figure because
producing is still on, we have not received any official communication from
the government of Sudan so we are still producing," he said in the capital
Juba.
He gave no production figure but officials said last month the country was
pumping around 200,000 barrels a day from its main Palouge Field in Upper
Nile state.
An industry source also said oil was flowing "normally" to Sudan.
South Sudan used to pump 300,000 bpd before it turned off wells last year in
a row with Sudan over fees. But oil sources say it is unlikely to produce
more than 230,000 bpd until year-end as some facilities were damaged during
fighting between the two countries in April 2012.
KIIR STRIKES BACK
On Saturday, Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir accused the neighbor of
backing rebels of the Sudanese Revolutionary Front (SRF), which launched a
major attack on towns in central Sudan in April, a shock to many ordinary
Sudanese.
But South Sudan's President Salva Kiir rejected the claims and said Bashir
was only upset because his army struggled to contain the rebels.
"Instead of admitting they have failed to repulse or push back the rebels
they say it is South Sudan which is fighting them," Kiir told reporters.
"President Bashir is declaring war indirectly without saying it. We are not
for war."
He said Sudan was supporting rebels in South Sudan's Jonglei state, where
the government wants to search for oil with France's Total and U.S. major
Exxon.
"He slapped me and he cried and ran and accused me. This is what Bashir is
doing," Kiir said of Bashir's alleged support for insurgents in South Sudan.
Sudan said it would allow the export of the oil which has already arrived on
its soil. CNPC last week said it had already sold 1.2 million barrels of
South Sudanese oil.
Dau said any shutdown would be done gradually in coordination with Sudan and
the oil companies. "It will not be done in one day, it will be done in 60
days gradually until you reach zero production," he said.
A confirmed closure of the pipelines would be devastating for both
underdeveloped economies which have been struggling without oil, the main
source for dollars to fund imports.
Received on Mon Jun 10 2013 - 18:04:00 EDT