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Gold/Mining/Energy : ARAKIS: HIGH RISK OIL PLAY (AKSEF) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Edward M. Zettlemoyer who wrote (9101)	9/10/1998 1:32:00 PM
From: John A. Paul	Respond to of 9164

Thursday September 10, 1:04 pm Eastern Time Sudan says will become net oil exporter July'99 By Rawhi Abeidoh RABAT, Sept 10 (Reuters) - Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir said on Thursday his country would become a net oil exporter in July next year with an initial capacity of 150,000 barrels per day (bpd). ''In July, Sudan will enter a new stage as oil exports become a important feature of the national economy,'' Bashir told a news conference at the end of a three-day working visit to Morocco. ''We will start with an initial export of 150,000 bpd which will be available on the international oil market,'' he said. ''Work on installations, including a pipeline and export terminal at Port Sudan...is almost complete,'' Bashir added. Exploration work on potentially oil-rich fields in Sudan, the largest country in Africa but one of its poorest, has been interrupted several times during Sudan's 15-year civil war with southern rebels. Earlier this year, Sudan was producing under 20,000 bpd. Sudanese officials said on Thursday the latest oil finds were made in the relatively quiet province of Kordofan some 400 km (250 miles) west of the capital Khartoum. ''The reserves are huge, but we can't give accurate figures at present. We can easily reach up to 500,000 bpd, but the problem is how to store and transport this volume,'' presidential adviser Sadek Bakhit told Reuters. The main exploration and production operations are being carried out by a consortium called the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company. The partners in the consortium are China's CNPC, Malaysia's Petronas , Canada's Arakis (Nasdaq:AKSEF - news), now being taken over by another Canadian firm Talisman (Toronto:TLM.TO - news), and state-owned Sudan Petroleum. ''Out of 14 wells drilled in South Kordofan, 13 have been productive. This is far above the world average of one out of three,'' Bakhit said. He added that Sudan was also building a refinery near Khartoum to process 50,000 bpd of crude oil with the help of French and Argentine firms that would double Sudan's refining capacity. He did not name the companies. ''At present we only have three small refineries with a total capacity of 50,000 bpd, enough for local consumption, but we expect demand to rise with the new oil-associated projects,'' Bakhit said. Sudan spends about $360 million a year to import oil. Bashir said oil revenues would lessen Sudan's dependence on foreign assistance, which he said represented more than 60 percent of the country's foreign currency receipts until the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund stopped aid two years ago. Sudan is under partial U.N. sanctions for its failure to hand over Moslem militants accused of involvement in a failed assassination attempt against Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in June 1996. ''We hope the revenues will help us in our development works, especially in agriculture and mining,'' Bashir said.