Sudan and South Sudan have agreed to extend an oil agreement that allows South Sudan to export its crude oil through its northern neighbour’s facilities until 2022.
The agreement was originally signed in 2012 and had been extended until December 31, 2019. It has now been extended again until March 2022.
The oil deal was signed by Undersecretary of Sudan’s Ministry of Energy and Mining Hamid Suleiman and his South Sudanese counterpart, Mayen Wol Jong.
Hamed Suleiman, the Undersecretary of the Sudanese Energy and Mining Ministry, told the state news agency SUNA on Wednesday that the two countries discussed the renewal of the deal on the oil transit through the Sudanese ports as well as the resumption of the Tharjiath oilfield block 5A in the Unity region.
He pointed out that the two countries will continue their technical cooperation in the oil sector.
For his part, the Undersecretary of South Sudan’s Ministry of Petroleum, Mayen Wol Jong expressed his happiness for the commitment of the two countries to the oil cooperation agreement, which has been extended until March 2022.
The South Sudanese official reaffirmed their readiness for further cooperation to ensure that all oilfields resume production in South Sudan.
The agreement to extend the oil deal was signed during a visit by a South Sudanese petroleum ministry team to the capital Khartoum.
In September, Sudan’s energy minister Adil Ali Ibrahim said they were planning to move away from a fixed fee, disclosing that oil transit fees that Sudan government charges its neighbour South Sudan will be based on crude oil prices next year.
South Sudan has one of the largest reserves of crude in sub-Saharan Africa. It plans to increase output to more than 350,000 barrels of crude per day by the middle of 2020, up from 180,000 barrels per day currently, according to official figures.