Sudan’s oil production set to increase in 2004
By M. Ali, PANA Correspondent
Khartoum, Sudan, Dec 03, 2003 (PANA) — Sudan is set to raise oil production in the coming weeks, as Block 6 in Western Kordofan operated by Chinese company CNPC comes on-stream at 60,000 barrels a day (b/d), eventually rising to 180,000 b/d, according to a report by the National Centre for Research and Studies.
This will raise Sudan’s total oil production, currently averaging 295,000 b/d, by some 20 percent to above 350,000 b/d next year.
Further on, the planned start-up of production by the CNPC-led consortium in Blocks 3 and 7 in 2005 will bring an initial 170,000 b/d on stream the report indicated.
It said the new amounts will lift national production above 600,000 b/d by the end of 2005, and that all things being equal, this would further rise to 750,000 b/d by the end of 2006.
CNPC signed an agreement with Sudan last 28 August to build a new 200,000-b/d 730-km pipeline to carry oil from the Block 6 Melut Basin fields to the Khartoum refinery. It also signed a separate agreement to expand the refinery.
CNPC is a shareholder with Sudan Petroleum Corporation (SPC) in the Khartoum refinery which started operating in early 2000, turning out 50,000 b/d. The Chinese outfit agreed to carry out a 340 million dollar expansion of the plant to raise through-put capacity to 100,000 b/d.
The rest of the crude will be exported via the existing export pipeline from Port Sudan on the Red Sea.
Sudanese oil production is at present dominated by the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company (GNPOC), which operates the Heglig and Unity fields of Block 1, 2 and 4.
The report explained the heightened production prospects on the size of new discoveries in Blocks 3 and 7, said to have some 3.5 billion barrels of oil.
Progress in developing Sudan’s upstream sector is moving ahead along with efforts towards a comprehensive peace deal between the government and the separatist Sudan Peoples Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A).
Since the Machakos Protocol governing the framework for talks was agreed in July 2002, the parties and mediators, who successively met in the Kenyan towns of Machakos, Nakuru and Naivasha have made substantial progress on issues such as the sharing wealth, natural resources and land ownership.
The talks are into what observers believe is the last round with the possibility of sealing a comprehensive peace deal before the year runs out.