Sudan awaiting decision on its OPEC membership application: minister

October 22, 2015 (KHARTOUM) – Sudan has formally submitted an application to join the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), its oil minister Mohamed Zayed Awad said this week.

“We have already submitted an application and are waiting for a decision,” the minister told reporters in Moscow on Tuesday according to Sputnik news.

“Now, everything depends on OPEC” he added.

Sudan has long spoke of its desire to join the oil cartel particularly in the pre-partition years when its oil production was close to 500,000 barrels per day. It is not clear why the idea has now been brought to life.

In 2012, Sudan has been reclassified by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) from a net exporter of oil to a net importer after the oil-rich south became an independent state, taking with it 75% of the petroleum reserves that existed in the united Sudan.

Bank of America said in a report late last year that OPEC is now “effectively dissolved” after it has failed to halt the free fall of oil prices which has put several of its members in a tight fiscal position.

(ST)