News Article by REUTERS on May 10, 2000 at 15:00:48 EST (-5 GMT):
INTERVIEW-Sudan now self-sufficient in oil, to export petrol
By Alistair Lyon
KHARTOUM, May 10 (Reuters) - Sudan has stopped importing
oil
products and will soon begin exporting motor gasoline, or petrol,
as a
new refinery near Khartoum moves towards full capacity, an
Oil Ministry
official said on Wednesday.
Hassan Ali El-Tom, undersecretary at the ministry, told
Reuters in an
interview that the complex refinery with a residue
fluid catalytic cracker
near El-Geili, 70 km (44 miles) north of
the capital, was now at 80 to 85
percent of its 50,000 barrels per
day (bpd) capacity.
He said the refinery, built by a subsidiary of the China
National
Petroleum Company (CNPC), began operating in February
and, along with an
older 10,000 bpd refinery at El-Obeid in
central Sudan, was now meeting all
the needs of the country, which
used to import about 1.5 million tonnes a
year of products.
"This is an economic turning-point when you become
self-sufficient in oil
products," Tom said. "It will really
boost the economy."
Imports of oil products costing about $300 million a year were
once a
serious drain on Sudan's scarce foreign exchange and
shortages of oil
products frequently plagued its 30 million
people.
Pumping of surplus petrol from the refinery began a few days
ago through
an existing products pipeline that previously brought
imported products from
Port Sudan on the Red Sea, about 680 km
(425 miles) northeast of Khartoum.
Tom said it would take several weeks for the petrol to reach
Port Sudan
and fill storage tanks there, adding that he expected
petrol exports to reach
about half a million tonnes a year. The
pipeline has a capacity of 700,000
tonnes a year.
HOPES TO BOOST CRUDE OIL OUTPUT
Sudan, now pumping a maximum of 200,000 bpd of crude oil, and
more
typically 185,000 bpd, through a 1,510-km (944-mile) long
pipeline from oil
fields in the south to an export terminal at
Port Bashair on the Red Sea,
hopes to increase this to 230,000 bpd
next year.
"It all depends on exploration activities. We don't increase
production
unless we are sure we have increased the reserves and
this is still in the
air, but it looks promising," Tom said.
He put proven reserves at 650 million to 800 million barrels,
adding one
billion barrels was a reasonable future target.
Rebels fighting Sudan's Islamist government have blown up the
oil export
pipeline three times since exports began last August,
but damage has been
swiftly repaired.
CNPC owns 40 percent of the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating
Company
(GNPOC), the key developer of Sudan's oil fields. Canada's
Talisman Energy
Inc has a 25 percent stake, Malaysia's state oil
company Petronas has 30
percent and Sudan's state oil company five
percent.
Exploration is in its early stages in Sudan, with only 15 to
20 percent of
prospective areas covered. Most work has taken place
in the GNPOC block, but
Tom said the International Petroleum
Corporation (Lundin) had drilled one
well with good oil shows in a
block to the southeast of GNPOC's area.
Two more blocks in the southeast, near the border with
Ethiopia, had been
taken up by a Gulf Arab consortium and a
consortium known as Malut, which
includes the Canadian company
Foster, Tom said.
Sudan was open to further exploration, but would negotiate one
block at a
time in accordance with its own manpower and technical
capacities, he added.
Tom said Libya had floated the idea of building an oil export
pipeline at
its own expense from its southern fields across the
harsh Sudanese desert to
the Red Sea, presumably to serve Far
Eastern markets.
He said Sudan would charge transit fees if the idea came to
fruition, but
would have no other direct interest in the pipeline
unless oil was found in
the so far unexplored northeast of the
country.