S. Africa may find partners for Sudan oil block

JOHANNESBURG: South Africa’s Strategic Fuel Fund is welcome to bring in partners to help it execute a US$1bil agreement to drill for oil and build a refinery and pipeline in South Sudan, the central African nation’s oil minister said.

Under the agreement, signed between the two governments on May 6, the Strategic Fuel Fund holds 90% of the project in B2 block with the Nile Petroleum Corp, South Sudan’s national oil company, owning the rest, Ezekiel Gatkuoth said in an interview at Bloomberg’s office in Johannesburg after earlier meeting his South African counterpart. The project, which Gatkuoth expects to reach production in six years, includes the construction of a 60,000 barrel per day oil refinery in Pagak, he said.

“They have room to farm in” a partner, the South Sudanese minister said, adding that his government has the right to approve any partners and that a transaction would be subject to capital gains tax.

The partnership should benefit South Sudan by boosting production in a nation where output is half of what it was before a civil war. — Bloomberg