Sudan confirms holding oil shipment over unpaid fees
The Sudanese government on Friday confirmed that authorities in Port Sudan have refused to allow an oil shipment to leave because of unpaid fees.
"Sudan has blocked the ship in Port Sudan, because the government of South Sudan didn’t accept the fees for using the pipeline, the refinery and the port," foreign ministry spokesman Al-Obaid Marawih told Agence France Presse (AFP).
Garang Deng, South Sudan’s oil minister, said yesterday that the oil tanker contained 600,000 barrels and warned that the holdup could lead to penalties assessed on Juba because of late delivery to buyer whose identity was not revealed.
"We have failed to reach solutions with the government of Sudan that would guarantee that the ship would depart at the specified time," Deng said.
"I have contacted the finance and energy ministers of the Northern government but they refused to talk about it on the pretext that they have meetings" he added.
But today another South Sudan official downplayed the existence of political motivations behind the row. The first oil shipment from South Sudan containing 1 million barrels was made in July out of Port Sudan without any issues.
"We don’t interpret this as a rejection by Khartoum. I do not think this is politically motivated," David Gubek, undersecretary at the ministry of energy and mining in Juba told Reuters.
"There are certain procedures at the port that have to be followed. We will wait for clarification tomorrow" Gubek added.
The oil-rich nation became an independent state last month after its citizens voted almost unanimously in favor of secession from the Arab-Muslim dominated north. But the latter contains the pipelines that transports the oil from the landlocked South to Port Sudan.
Both sides are still negotiating the transit fees to be assessed per barrel for usage of the pipelines. The figures proposed by Khartoum initially were called "daylight robbery" by Juba.
South Sudan officials have threatened to seek other venues to export their oil and rejected any revenue sharing similar to the one that was in place prior to July 9th.
(ST)
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