South Sudan: Committee - Two Pipelines to Ethiopia, Djibouti Viable
By Dhieu Williams, 24 June 2012
Six months after South Sudan turned off oil flow through neighboring Sudan
the chairperson of the Steering Committee tasked to conduct studies on the
Memorandum of Understanding told The Citizen yesterday after a short meeting
that constructing two pipelines to Ethiopia and Djibouti was viable on
economic aspects.
The landlocked South Sudan failed to agree with Sudan on how much fees it
should pay for exporting its oil through the north's infrastructures. Sudan
demands 34 $ per dollar while South Sudan offers to pay less than a dollar
in accordance with the international practice.
The two countries have been negotiating over several contentious issues
besides oil including borders, Abyei, external debts, citizenship and were
unable to achieve a breakthrough in any of them.
South Sudan's government, which relies on oil earnings for 98 percent of its
revenue, has cut its annual budget by a quarter in austerity measure as a
result of the crude shutdown.
The country turned off its 350,000 barrels a day in oil production in
January 2012 after accusing Sudan of stealing $850 million worth of its oil
which Sudan said it confiscated for unpaid fees for shipping it through a
pipeline to Port Sudan.
On April in the wake of the worst fighting between the two countries,
Sudanese president Omer Hassan al-Bashir vowed that his country will not
allow its southern neighbor to export any of its oil through the pipelines
since they broke up.
The head of the Committee and the Deputy Minister for Petroleum and Mining,
Elizabeth James Bol said the committee is working hard to speed up the
process to start construction of the pipeline after conducting studies of
MOU.
She added that the next step for the committee was to move to Djibouti to
bind the understanding by next month.
James further said it will be in the Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA) where
transit fees according to the international standard would be discussed.
Steering committee composed of five deputy ministers and five other
technical staff from the Ministry of Petroleum discussed on ways to finalize
the Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA) due to be signed after position of
South Sudan is known.
On February 2nd this year, the three sisterly countries of South Sudan,
Ethiopia and Djibouti signed Memorandum of Understanding to develop
alternative crude oil pipeline and fibre optic connection for monitoring
among others.
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Received on Sun Jun 24 2012 - 13:45:14 EDT
