JUST REAL OIL "NEWS":
By ANDREW ENGLAND Associated Press Writer
KHARTOUM, Sudan, May 10, 2001 (AP) -- Oil production in Sudan is exceeding
expectations as output in Africa's largest country reaches 220,000 barrels a day
despite civil war and U.S. sanctions, a senior official said Thursday.
Energy and Mining Minister Awad Ahmed Al-Jaz Minister said a consortium of
Canadian, Chinese, Malaysian and Sudanese companies has had "100 percent
success" with the wells in its concession, the first to come on line.
The Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company, or GNPOC, began producing oil
from the 12.2 million-acre (4.94 million-hectare) concession near Bentiu, 750
kilometers (465 miles) southwest of Khartoum, in August 1999, boosting Sudan into
the ranks of oil-exporting nations.
China National Petroleum Corporation owns 40 percent of GNPOC, the Malaysian
group, Petronas, has a 30 percent share, Talisman of Canada has a 25 percent stake
and the Sudanese state-owned company Sudapet owns the remaining 5 percent.
The group is already pumping oil from some 100 wells and expects another 30 to go
on line within the next six to 12 months.
"The rate is much higher than expected ... it's seems to me the reserves are
impressive," Al-Jaz said in an interview with The Associated Press.
The concession is the first of five already leased by the government and more are
likely to be leased in the future, Al-Jaz said.
He added it was hoped that wells in another two of the five concessions will be
producing by early next year, each of them adding another 100,000 barrels to boost
Sudan's daily output to 400,000 barrels a day.
"Our goal is to be the biggest oil exporter in the world," Al-Jaz said.
The Swedish group Lundin, Austrian OMV, Petronas and Sudapet operate a joint
venture in the second concession and have already drilled two exploratory wells. The
Chinese petroleum company has a 90 percent share in the third concession; Sudapet
holds the remainder.
TotalFinaElf holds the fourth concession, and a Chinese-Qatari joint venture holds the
fifth.
Talisman's general manager in Khartoum, Ralph Capeling, said GNPOC, was
producing oil in six fields which will increase to around 10 fields within 12 months.
"It is better than Talisman expected. When we came in October 1998, we though we
were buying 600 million barrels, but what we got was 917 million," Capeling told The
Associated Press.
Sudan's total reserves are unknown.
He said output was expected to rise to 250,000 barrels a day by 2003, a rate that could
be maintained "for some time."
The oil pumped from the GNPOC concession is shipped by a Chinese-built 1,610-
kilometer (1,000-mile) pipeline to the Red Sea port of Port Sudan. Of the 220,000
barrels pumped daily, between 60,000 and 70,000 are used for the Sudanese market
and the rest are exported, Al-Jaz said.
The consortium spent more than dlrs 1 billion, excluding the cost of the concession, to
reach the production stage, Capeling said.
Sudan has four operating oil refineries and last week began producing aviation fuel
for the first time, Al-Jaz said, adding that the oil is attracting foreign investment and
will help Sudan develop.
Beset by an 18-year civil war, U.S. sanctions imposed in 1997 and virtually no
international development aid, Sudan is one of the world's least-developed countries.
Not taking into account new oil revenues, the United Nations has calculated Sudan's
annual per capita GDP at dlrs 290.
The biggest hindrance to oil production is the civil war in the southern third of the
country, the latest round of which began in 1983. Many potential concessions are in
territory controlled by rebels fighting for greater autonomy.
The U.S. oil company Chevron pulled out of Sudan in 1984, largely because of
insecurity, after carrying out extensive explorations in the south. In 1992 it
relinquished its concessions, including the one GNPOC is now operating.
Al-Jaz said the oil money was being used to build roads and provide electricity,
schools and health facilities to rural areas. Critics charge that oil revenues are fueling
the government's fight against the Sudan People's Liberation Army.
The minister said inflation has fallen from 106 percent to 2 percent in the last three
years.
Al-Jaz declined to say how much money the government was making from the oil, but
according to Talisman's figures, Khartoum received dlrs 8.73 for every barrel sold at
an average price of dlrs 22 last year. The remainder went to the consortium.
As the government pays off investment loans to the consortium, its percentage share
on the price of a barrel will increase, Capeling said. |
