Southern Sudan May Pay North 30% of Oil Revenue for Shipping Crude Exports
Southern Sudan may agree to pay as much as 30 percent of its oil revenue to the government in the north after it becomes an independent nation in July, said the region’s foreign trade minister, Elias Nyamlel Wakoson.
Land-locked Southern Sudan will pay for the right to use an export pipeline that crosses the north in cash or in oil, Wakoson said today in an interview in Dubai. The authorities in Khartoum, Sudan’s capital, and Southern Sudan’s government are negotiating post-independence arrangements for the oil industry.
“Maybe 30-70 or 20-80,” he said when asked about the oil revenue-sharing agreement being considered by the south. “We will continue supplying the north. We will not pull the rug under the north; that would create instability.”
At independence on July 9, Southern Sudan will assume control of about three-quarters of Sudan’s current oil production of 490,000 barrels a day, pumped mainly by China National Petroleum Corp., Malaysia’s Petroliam Nasional Bhd. and India’s Oil & Natural Gas Corp.
Sudan’s oil refineries and its only oil-export terminal, at Port Sudan on the Red Sea, are in the north. The two regions now share revenue from oil pumped in the south on a 50-50 basis, under a 2005 peace agreement that ended a two-decade civil war.
Transportation Costs
“If the south wants to continue to export their oil through the north, then they will have to pay for transport fees,” Rabie Abdel Ati, a senior member of Sudanese President Umar al-Bashir’s National Congress Party, said today by phone from Khartoum. “Discussions are still ongoing. The cost will be decided according to international prices.”
Southern Sudan, which depends on oil for 98 percent of its budget, is studying other options for exporting oil other than the north, Pagan Amum, the secretary-general of the southern region’s ruling party, told reporters on March 12 in Khartoum.
The two sides are also still negotiating on issues such as citizenship rights, border demarcation and the responsibility for Sudan’s $38 billion of foreign debt.
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