Sudan to export 2 million barrels of oil a day in 2008-minister

RIO DE JANEIRO, May 10, 2005 (Dow Jones) — Sudan’s Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail, after a meeting with Brazil’s Foreign Minister Celso Amorim late Monday, said he expects his country to export 500,000 barrels of oil a day in August, and 2 million b/d in 2008, the Arab-Brasilian Commerce Chamber said on its Web site Monday.

Sudanese President Omar el-Bashir with ex-President Gaafar Nimeiri and Hassan Turabi among others during the inauguration of an oil pipeline on Monday May 31, 1999, in Heglig, central Sudan. (AP) .

“Preliminary studies show that Sudan is situated on a true lake of oil,” Ismail was quoted as saying.

Mohammed Isa, a high-ranking Sudanese diplomat with the embassy in Brasilia, told Dow Jones Newswires the August figure is approximately right, and that Sudan’s current oil exports are about 350,000 b/d. He could not immediately confirm the forecast for 2008.

Foreign Minister Ismail also invited Brazil’s state-run oil company Petrobras SA (PBR) to invest in Sudanese oil projects.

Petrobras officials contacted by Dow Jones Newswires had no immediate comment.

Ismail, according to the commerce chamber, also said his government “needs” Brazilian products as it plans to invest $6 billion in infrastructure in the African country that has been devastated by a 21-year of civil war, between the Muslim Arab north and the largely Christian and animist African south.

The conflict has left an estimated two million people dead. The government in Khartoum and the southern Sudanese rebels in January 2005 signed a comprehensive peace agreement.

“The Sudanese government wants to rebuild the country after last year’s peace agreement,” Isa said. “We want new roads, hospitals, airports.”

Ismail also invited Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to visit Sudan, the commerce chamber said.

The prospect of potentially lucrative oil contracts in Sudan has been met with interest by companies such as France’s Total SA (TOT), Marathon Oil Corp. (MRO), Kuwait Petroleum Corp. (KPT.YY), or London-listed White Nile Ltd. (WNL.LN).

But the Arab-led regime in Khartoum and a government-in-waiting of Southern Sudan to be instated on July 9 and led by the Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement, or SPLM, have disagreements over who is in charge of granting oil exploration and production contracts.

Under the peace agreement oil revenues from existing oil production will be split equally between South and North. In six years, the South may hold a vote on independence at the end of an interim period of the peace agreement