China Gets a Sixth of South Sudan Oil Output to Build Highways

South Sudan tripled the amount of oil it’s providing to the Export-Import Bank of China to fund the nation’s biggest infrastructure-development project.

The East African country will provide 30,000 barrels per day of crude to the state-owned lender, up from 10,000 barrels it agreed in February, Information Minister Michael Makuei Lueth told reporters Friday in the capital, Juba. The country currently produces about 170,000 barrels per day, according to the Petroleum Ministry.

South Sudan, which became independent in 2011, is rebuilding an economy shattered by five years of civil war in which almost 400,000 people died. It’s also reviving oil production that declined by two-thirds to about 120,000 barrels per day because of the conflict.

“We have adopted the policy of oil for development,” Lueth said. ‘The cabinet approved an additional 20,000 drums to make it 30,000 drums per day to be deposited in an account in China for infrastructure, especially for the roads and other development.”

The crude will fund projects including a 392-kilometer (244-mile) road from Juba to Rumbek in the central region, with work set to begin in mid-April. Other routes are planned from the south to the Bahr el-Ghazal region and from Juba to Nadapal on the Kenyan border.

China’s Shandong Hi-speed Co. is carrying out the construction, which will take 36 months to complete, Lueth said.