Sudan oil output to surge to 650,000 bpd

Feb 13, 2006 (DUBAI) — Sudan is producing 500,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil and expects to increase output by 150,000 bpd this year, a government official said on Monday.

“At present, Sudan is producing 500,000 barrels per day. Production is expected to increase to 650,000 barrels per day very soon this year,” Angelina Teny, a minister of state for energy and mining, told a forum in Dubai emirate.

She gave no further details.

In November, an oil ministry official said Sudan’s output would rise to more than half a million bpd by the end of 2005 from about 330,000 bpd of medium-heavy sweet Nile Blend.

The country’s new, heavy sweet Dar Blend crude was due to come on stream last year in the Melut basin on blocks 3 and 7.

Sudan’s oil has fuelled a conflict in the south which claimed up to two million lives over the past two decades.

The conflict ended with a January 2004 peace deal and under its terms the former rebels and the government have formed an eight-member joint petroleum commission to monitor future oil contracts and production.

(Reuters/ST)