South Sudan calls for Dar Petroleum to resume oil production, output

(Bloomberg) – South Sudan’s government called for the Dar Petroleum Operating Co. to begin resuming oil output on Wednesday, days after neighboring Sudan — through which crude flows to the coast — reopened the route for exports.

Oil shipments from South Sudan were cut in half from February last year after the pipeline ruptured due to lack of diesel to thin out crude, which accounts for more than 90% of the landlocked nation’s revenue. The situation has been further complicated by an ongoing conflict in Sudan, but security arrangements made by the governments and measures by pipeline operator Bashayer Pipeline Co. earlier this week allowed the lifting of a force majeure that had been in place since March.

South Sudan’s Ministry of Petroleum and partners “are hereby directing DPOC to kick-off resumption” of oil output as early as Jan. 8, it said in a letter seen by Bloomberg. “Our D-Day that we have been waiting for is tomorrow,” South Sudan’s Oil Minister Puot Kang Chol told reporters in Juba, the capital, Tuesday.

DPOC operates in Block 3 and 7 and includes the China National Petroleum Company and Sinopec, according to South Sudan’s state-owned oil company, which is also a partner. The government has set a target for crude production from those operations to reach as much as 90,000 bpd in the first six months, South Sudan’s oil minister said.

Sudan has been mired in civil war since April 2023. Authorities blamed insecurity and flooding for delays in the repairing of the pipeline that its oil ministry in October said was fixed.

Chol also thanked those involved in reviving the pipeline that the economy of the country depends on. “They have been going to the field where war is taking place, but for the sake of this country, they have been going there,” he said.