UK White Nile to promote Education in South Sudan

May 2006, 2006 (JUBA) — A senior official with a UK based oil exploration company has said his company is committed to support youth and education in southern Sudan through mobile cinemas beginning in next October.

Addressing reporters in Juba last week, White Nile chief operations manager, Philip Ward said that his company is also committed to environmental conservation by teaching local population on the need to conserve environment.

Ward further said that his company has already started development projects in the oil producing areas in Jonglei state, the Sudan Radio Service, reported.

He announced that the company has also distributed mosquito nets, fishing nets and grinding machines to local people.

Ward said the company reconstructing a 30-kilometer road from Jalle to Maar.

White Nile Exploration Company is also helping with the repatriation of 30 thousand internally displaced persons or idp’s from Juba to their home areas in Jonglei state.

He told reporters that his company was planning to build a pipeline from southern Sudan to the Kenyan port of Lamu.

White Nile, the Aim-listed oil explorer run by ex-cricketer Phil Edmonds and business partner Andrew Groves, has started this month gathering seismic data after many months of delays at its controversial project in Sudan.

White Nile will be carrying out seismic tests to map out Block Ba’s oil reservoirs until November, at a cost of $16m (£8.6m). It plans to drill its first exploration well before the end of the year, with a second well to follow in early 2007.

The French oil group still claims to have the drilling rights to the block, citing an agreement with the government in the north

(ST/SRS)