Lack of Funding Hindered South Sudan’s Oil Field Plans

South Sudan’s national planning body, speaking at a national economic conference, has indicated that the nation’s aspirations to assume control over oil fields currently operated by foreign companies, whose contracts expire in 2027, are not practically achievable due to a lack of financial resources and the necessary capabilities, according to Bloomberg.
Nile Petroleum Corp., a state-owned company in South Sudan, was supposed to take over foreign oil activities when contracts ran out in the original plan.
China’s massive CNPC and Malaysia’s Petronas are two private oil companies operating in South Sudan.
The creation of a substitute pipeline, which would give landlocked South Sudan a second route to the market while avoiding the conflict-torn nation of Sudan, was also high on the conference agenda.
South Sudan’s oil exports have not yet been impacted by the raging war in Sudan, but there are growing concerns that as the fighting worsens, oil could be in danger.
As the military of the nation and a rival paramilitary group battle for power, a drone assault on an open market in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, resulted in the deaths of dozens of people on Sunday.
Salva Kiir, president of South Sudan, stated at a conference over the weekend that the region’s economies are being severely harmed by the war in Sudan, which has been going on since April.
Along with growing resentment over how the nation’s oil revenues are being used, there are growing concerns that South Sudan itself could relapse into civil war.
South Sudan’s economy is still recovering from the actual civil war, which just came to an end in 2018 with a shaky power-sharing arrangement.
As noted by the Crisis Group, during the war, President Kiir “mortgaged future oil exports for advance loans from a small group of commodity traders and commercial banks, piling up debt while hiding the country’s finances ever further from sight”.

Source: Allnews Nigeria

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