Sudan considers joining OPEC

Nov 30, 2006 (KHARTOUM) — Sudan is considering joining the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries pending approval from President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, an oil ministry official told Reuters on Thursday.

“The application for joining OPEC is in front of the president,” said Mohamed Siddig, a spokesman from the Sudanese oil ministry in Khartoum.

Sudan pumps around 330,000 barrels per day of crude.

Fellow African oil producer Angola said on Thursday it aimed to join OPEC next year.

Ecuador said last week it may also re-join the group.

After a 2005 peace deal to end Africa’s longest civil war in Sudan’s south, Africa’s largest country hopes to further develop its budding oil industry.

Western oil companies pulled out of Sudan during the north-south war because of the human rights abuses during the conflict.

Chinese, Malaysian and Indian companies dominate Sudan’s oil sector.

While its two largest oil fields are in the south, Sudan has begun to sell exploration concessions in the Darfur and northern areas as well as building a new pipeline it hopes to come on line and raise production to at least 500,000 bpd by the end of the year after a few false starts.

Under international fire for a separate conflict in its western Darfur region, joining OPEC would give Sudan leverage in its confrontation with the United Nations over ongoing atrocities and its refusal to allow U.N. peacekeepers to enter Darfur.

The Darfur conflict has spilled over into neighbouring oil-producing Chad, creating tens of thousands of new refugees and destabilising the Chadian government.

(Reuters)