Kenya projects to link with South Sudan

July 25, 2006 (NAIROBI) — The Kenyan government planned to start a multi-million-dollar project this year to link the east African nation with southern Sudan which emerged from more than two decades of civil war with enormous business opportunities, an official said here on Tuesday.

According to the project dubbed Four In One, Kenya would construct railway and rehabilitate roads to south Sudan, roll out a fiber optic cable to bring down the cost of telecommunication and construct an oil pipeline from the Kenyan coastal town Lamu to the vast region.

The details of the project, whose developer was a Kuwaiti firm, would be known once the Kenyan cabinet approved it, Albert Origa, deputy director of Kenya Southern Sudan Liaison Office, told journalists.

“We have developed a paper which has been presented to the Cabinet for approval. If approved, we will embark on the reconstruction,” Origa said.

Kenya is among countries that now want to tap the oil resources in south Sudan with the establishment of a free port in Lamu, through which oil from Sudan can be shipped to other countries.

Analysts said the project would help to achieve a significant reduction in oil prices in Uganda, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, all of which import refined oil products through Kenya.

Under a landmark peace deal signed in Kenya last year that ended more than two decades of civil war pitting southern Sudanese rebels against the Khartoum government, oil revenues are split roughly 50-50 between the north and south.

Up to 500,000 barrels of crude oil are produced every day, mainly from fields in south Sudan with output forecast to rise by 150,000 barrels per day this year. Experts estimate there are billions of barrels of recoverable reserves in south Sudan.

(Xinhua/ST)