Sudan to boost oil output to 500,000 bpd in 2005: official

KHARTOUM, Feb 29 (AFP) — Sudan expects to boost oil production from the current level of 312,000 barrels per day (bpd) to 500,000 bpd by the second half of 2005, a senior Sudanese oil official was Sunday quoted as saying.

The energy ministry secretary general, Omar Mohammed Khair, said in official Al-Anbaa daily that the output would be reached with increases in Upper Nile state’s Melut fields and West Kordofan state’s Beleilah field.

He predicted production in southern Sudan’s Melut fields would reach 200,000 bpd before the end of 2005, noting that new finds there exceeded previous ones in the south.

The official did not list current production figures for Melut fields.

Production in central Sudan’s Beleilah field would rise from the current 12,000 bpd to 40,000 bpd, said Khair, adding that the country’s oil output would thus reach 500,000 bpd by the second half of next year.

Most of Sudan’s oil is produced at the main Heglig-Unity oil field between West Kordofan State and Unity State in central Sudan.

In July, Sudan’s Energy and Mines Minister Awad Ahmed al-Jaz told Egyptian government daily Al-Ahram that “current production varies between 270,000 and 300,000 bpd in Heglig-Unity”.

The Heglig field began producing crude in August 1999, when Sudan started exporting petroleum. Most of Sudan’s production is for export, but Al-Anbaa did not give updated figures.