A week ago, rebels in South Sudan, a republic that had broken away from Sudan, demanded oil extraction to be stopped, threatening to take over fields. The sovereign status of South Sudan was adopted on July 2011 after the signing of a declaration of independence. Three-quarters of the oil fields of the country belong to South Sudan now. However, the pipelines exporting oil are under the control of Sudan, also known as the Republic of Sudan. A Sudanese delegation visited Moscow to partake in the 14th Ministerial Meeting of the International Energy Forum attended by ministers for oil and energy from 87 countries. The topic of the discussions was “the new geography of energy and the future of global energy security.”
Sudanese Minister for Oil Hatim Abulkasem assured: "Our country has rich reserves of raw materials. Many Western states, and not only Western, Asian as well, in particular China, pay Sudan great attention. Its geographical position makes Sudan a target of big interest from our partners in other countries. Sudan lives in natural and stable conditions, and many countries of the world allocate investments into our country. The laws in Sudan are extremely favourable for investments, we offer many benefits and privileges for all investors. We even give land, give territory, create certain customs benefits, freeing foreign companies investing in Sudan from taxes and customs fees.”
Concerning the situation in South Sudan, the minister stated: “The situation in the south is quite tense, but we continue to help our southern neighbour.” “We started exporting oil in 1998. Oil is extracted in six districts of Sudan and sent to refineries through oil pipelines. The Chinese state company CNPC, the Malaysian company Petronas and Indian companies invest in Sudan, there are European companies, Arab companies, in particular, one from Kuwait. These companies operating in Sudan are quite free. They receive requests for ever newer investments literally every day. We have infrastructure for development of petroleum projects, two ports used for oil exports. The pipelines have a total length of over 5,000km. We have three refineries and we are ready to process more oil,” Hatim Abulkasem said.
In his words, Russian companies have commented on the situation in Sudan too: “We are interested in using the experience of Russian companies in extracting oil and gas. Russia has great experience in gas production, and we need development of gas fields. We are ready to fairly share any profit gained from the fields and we can offer a wide range of opportunities for Russian companies extracting gas in Sudan.”
