China's Africa Envoy Will Head to Sudan to Push Oil Talks
China is sending its special envoy for African affairs, Liu Guijin, to help push oil negotiations over between Sudan and newly independent South Sudan.
China is “concerned” that oil talks between north and South Sudan have stalled, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei told reporters today in Beijing. “Oil is the lifeline of the two Sudans.”
South Sudan has accused Sudan of blocking shipments of its oil that pass through northern pipelines to Port Sudan on the Red Sea. Sudan today said two cargoes were delayed due to the longer processing time needed since it started last month to take a percentage of the south’s oil that it says should be paid as transportation fees.
“It now takes time to notify oil companies that we’re going to put hands on 23 percent of their oil, because we want everything to go in a legal way,” Foreign Ministry spokesman el- Obeid Murawih said by phone in Khartoum.
South Sudan assumed control of about three-quarters of the former state’s output of 490,000 barrels a day when it seceded on July 9. Last month it seized the stakes held by Sudan’s state oil company, Sudapet, in joint operations in the south with companies such as China National Petroleum Corp., Malaysia’s Petroliam Nasional Bhd. and India’s Oil & Natural Gas Corp.
Negotiators from the two countries failed to reach agreement last week in African Union-brokered talks in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on the fees South Sudan should pay the north to ship its crude. The discussions are due to resume this month.
China’s Role
“I think the role of China is important to assist the two parties to agree on a formula,” Fouad Hikmat, an analyst with the Brussels-based International Crisis Group, said in a Skype call from Zanzibar on Dec. 3. “But again it depends on the willingness of the parties to compromise, and this is a rare commodity for the moment.”
South Sudan says Sudan delayed a shipment of 600,000 barrels to China International United Petroleum & Chemical Corp., due to be loaded by Dec. 30, prompting the company to write a letter of complaint. A 1-million barrel shipment scheduled to be sent to Geneva-based Vitol SA by Dec. 1 was loaded on Dec. 3, according to the country’s Oil Ministry.
China wouldn’t try to mediate the negotiations, Murawih said.
“China is not coming to play a mediating role in that sense,” he said. “China is an economic partner and is concerned about its interests in the region."
- Database Search
- Unpaid Debt A comprehensive overview of the role of the Lundin Consortium in the oil war. ECOS calls upon the Swedish, Austrian and Malaysian governments to investigate whether, as a matter of international law, Lundin, OMV and Petronas 'were complicit in the commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity by others during the period 1997-2003.’ In response, the Swedish Public Prosecutor for International crimes opened a criminal investigation into ‘links between Sweden and the reported crimes’.
- In Depth For more specific information about the Lundin court case please visit the Unpaid Debt dossier.
