South Sudan oil pumping tests to be conducted soon: official

August 17, 2018 (JUBA) - Oil workers are finalizing the reparation and maintenance works of oil wells and they plan to carry out tests for oil pumping by the end of the month, announced the government on Friday.

Last July, South Sudanese Oil Minister Ezekiel Lol Gatkuoth announced the resumption of oil production on 2 September from the Unity wells and vowed that by the end of the year, the production of all the remaining wells will be at its maximum capacity.

In a press briefing after the weekly council of ministers meeting, the deputy information minister Lily Albino Akol told reporters that the cabinet was briefed on the progress achieved in the works in the Unity region before to resume oil production within two weeks.

Akol further added that the production testing process will begin on 26 August.

"Our crude oil will be tested which means it will be pumped through the pipelines,” she stressed.

The engineers are expected to conduct injection tests to establish the rate and pressure at which oil can be pumped based on the amount of production that a pumping well is capable of flowing.

The deputy government spokesperson further announced that Gatkuoth and his Sudanese counterpart Azhari Abdel-Gader will travel to Toma oil field to attend the exercise, adding that oil will be pumped to Port Sudan through Heglig.

On June 27, South Sudanese parties signed the Khartoum Declaration of Agreement, where they committed themselves to a permanent ceasefire and pledged to finalize a deal on the pending issues in the governance chapter of the 2015 peace agreement.

The declaration provides to resume immediately in collaboration with the Sudanese government the rehabilitation of the damaged oil installations in the Unity region, Blocks 1,2, 4 and 5.