Sudan, South Sudan discuss ways of increasing oil production
August 1, 2022 (JUBA) – Petroleum ministers from South Sudan and neighbouring Sudan met on Monday to discuss ways of increasing oil production.
The meeting of these top officials took place in the South Sudanese capital, Juba.
Discussions, officials said, focused on new agreements that will focus on the right of the two countries’ sovereignty over their natural resources and that no country should take unilateral measures that affect the oil industry in the two countries.
South Sudan’s Presidential Affairs minister, Barnaba Marial Benjamin said the meeting focused on bilateral relations and Transitional Financial Arrangement (TFA) Sudan has been receiving from Juba as part of the 2012 cooperation deal.
“The message was delivered to President Salva Kiir Mayardit by a high-level delegation from Sudan led by the Secretary General of the Sudanese Transitional Sovereign Council, Mohammed Al-Ghali Ali, and the Minister of Energy and Petroleum Engineer Mohamed Abdalla”, he told the state-owned SSBC.
The meeting, Marial said, the meeting was important because South Sudan completed the payment of $3.08 billion to Sudan under the Transitional Financial Arrangement in March and it is now 4 months since the payment was completed.
He revealed that Sudan was owing South Sudan money for the oil proceeds from the last 4 months since the completion of the Transitional financial arrangement.
This money, according to the South Sudanese Presidential Affairs minister, will be paid to South Sudan by Sudan to address South Sudan’s economic situation.
Marial did not, however, specify how Sudan would pay its southern neighbour.
According to the minister, two countries would establish technical teams from the Ministries of Petroleum of South Sudan and the ministry of energy in Sudan sit to agree upon the new terms and strategies since the Government of South Sudan completed the payment of 3.08 billion dollars to Sudan which was an agreement of the peace process of the comprehensive peace agreement.
The Transitional Financial Arrangement was part of the Agreement on Oil and Related Economic Matters (AOREM) signed in 2012 between South Sudan and Sudan. It was meant to help Sudan with the economic shock caused by the secession of South Sudan from Sudan in 2011 following the conduct of the referendum on self-determination fulfilling the 2005 comprehensive Peace agreement which terminated the decades of the north-south war.
South Sudan has been selected to host this year’s Oil and Power Conference. The event, from September 13-14, is expected to position the young nation as African’s brightest prospect for growth and development.
(ST)