A blueprint for peace in Sudan could pave the way for increased investment from Western oil firms, now wrestling with security problems and charges they are helping Khartoum’s war effort, Sudanese oil executives and independent analysts said on Sunday.
The Sudanese government and the main rebel group in the oil-rich south, the Sudan People’s Liberation Army, signed a deal in Kenya on Saturday that maps out the road to a comprehensive peace agreement after 19 years of civil war.
“We have been contacted by some American firms … just to prepare themselves if the sanctions were lifted,” said Hamad el-Nil, acting secretary general of Sudan’s ministry of energy and mining.
US interest coincides with US President George W. Bush’s peace initiative, which was launched last September but has gained steam in the last few months with a US and Swiss-brokered ceasefire in the central Nuba mountains.
Oil firms working in Sudan said they were now studying Saturday’s government-SPLA agreement which includes provisions for sharing the nation’s wealth.
“This is potentially very good news for Western oil companies,” said Bill Farren-Price of the Cyprus-based Middle East Economic Survey (Mees).
Sudan’s first oil exports were launched in August 1999, via a pipeline from the southern oil fields in Higleig — drilled by a consortium of Sudanese, Chinese, Malaysian and Canadian firms — to Port Sudan on the Red Sea.
Sudan, which currently produces around 250 000 barrels of oil per day for domestic use and export, has an estimated three billion barrels of reserves, but 700-million barrels of proven, recoverable reserves, Sudanese officials say.
Although production has continued during the war, further exploration across swathes of the south has been limited because of fighting, particularly around the city of Bor, diplomats said.
French-Belgian-owned TotalFinaElf has a parcel of
120 000 square kilometres around the southern city of Bor.
The SPLA has also warned foreign firms that they were legitimate targets in the war.
In addition to the security problems linked to the fighting, Western oil firms like Talisman of Canada faced allegations from human rights groups and other organisations that they were helping Khartoum prosecute an unjust war.
Western firms “are also likely to see an easing of the pressure on them from Christian groups in the United States and lobbies in Washington, because of their cooperation with the Khartoum government,” Farren-Price told AFP by telephone.
“The Americans in particular wanted to see Khartoum share some of the oil wealth with the south,” he said.
The protests have taken their toll on the share price of the Calgary-based Talisman listed on the Toronto and New York stock exchanges.
Last year, the US House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a bill to bar oil companies with investments in Sudan from raising capital on US markets.
But it has not been turned into law because of opposition from the Bush administration.
Sudanese political analyst Adlan Hardallu said that Sudan’s oil wealth has played a factor in promoting an end to the conflict in Sudan.
Hardallu, a professor at Khartoum University, referred to the “interests of the United States in a stable area, particularly when it comes to oil production and other economic interests” in Sudan.
“They want to compete with the Chinese, Malaysians and the others who are working in the area. I don’t think the Americans would like these people monopolising this particular thing,” Hardallu said. – AFP