SUDAN PIPELINE OPERATING "FINE", ACCORDING TO REUTERS:
Sudan starts first oil exports from Red Sea terminal
By Alfred Taban
PORT BASHAIR, Sudan, Aug 30 (Reuters) - Sudan on Monday began the first crude oil exports from its Red Sea terminal of Port Bashair.
President Omar Hassan al-Bashir presided over the ceremony at the Port Bashair oil terminal attended by thousands of Sudanese, including speaker of parliament Hassan al-Turabi and several foreign dignitaries.
The Port Bashair oil terminal lies about 25 km (15 miles) south of Port Sudan, the country's main port, and about 1,200 km (750) miles northeast of Khartoum.
Dressed in military fatigues, Bashir watched a Panamanian tanker being loaded with 600,000 barrels of Sudanese oil.
The shipment will sail for Singapore next week, prices at a discount price of 90 cents per barrel fob to Asian crude marker Minas.
A second cargo, expected to load around September 10-15, was bought by a South Korean refinery at Minas -$1 fob.
Officials at Sudan's Energy and Mining Ministry said Sudan is selling its oil at 18 dollars per barrel, slightly less than the international market price.
Hassan Eltom, secretary-general of the Energy and Mining Ministry, said in May he expected exports to start at 120,000 barrels per day (bpd), rising to 150,000 bpd within a few weeks.
Engineers at the port said the pipeline's design capacity of 450,000 bpd will be reached within four to seven years.
Port Bashair has a storage capacity of two million barrels and is expected to rise to 3.2 million barrels with the use of reserve resevoirs.
Bashir inaugurated a new 1,600-km (1,000 mile) 28-inch pipeline from the Heglig oilfield to the Red Sea port on May 30.
Sudan is reported to have reserves of some 800 million barrels of oil in its Heglig and Unity fields.
Traders Trafigura have been appointed official marketers for Sudan's Nile Blend crude for an initial six months except for the 30 percent equity share owned by Malaysian state oil company Petronas, which will handle its own marketing.
The other equity owners in the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company are the China National Petroleum Corp (40 percent), Talisman Energy Inc of Canada (25 percent), and Sudan's national petroleum company (five percent).
13:01 08-30-99
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