Sudan asked Petrodar to load S. Sudan oil -south

JUBA (Reuters) - Sudan asked Chinese-Malaysian oil venture Petrodar to load 600,000 barrels of South Sudanese crude for export but the firm refused, a southern official said on Tuesday, a development likely to further inflame a row over transit fees.

South Sudan - which seceded from Sudan in July - has shut down its roughly 350,000 barrels per day of oil production in protest after Khartoum started to seize some southern crude to compensate for what it called unpaid fees.

The row centres on the rate Juba will pay to pipe its oil north through Sudan to the Red Sea terminal at Port Sudan. South Sudan took about three quarters of Sudan's oil, but it still relies on northern infrastructure to export it.

South Sudan's top negotiator Pagan Amum showed reporters in Juba a letter dated January 30 from Petrodar stating that the company refused to comply with an instruction from the northern government in Khartoum.

"This action is not acceptable as the crude belongs to (South Sudan's) government and prior approval from (South Sudan) is therefore needed," the letter read.

Sudan has sold off at least one tanker of crude seized from South Sudan and has offered two other cargoes, industry sources have said.

Apart from those three, Sudan on Sunday released four ships loaded with southern oil that had been held at Port Sudan, but South Sudanese officials said that was not enough to reverse their decision to halt production.

Four more ships are still waiting to load, southern officials say.

Amum reiterated South Sudan's proposal that the country pay a fee of $0.69 per barrel for one of the pipelines and $0.63 per barrel for another. Sudan has publicly stated it wants a fee of $36 per barrel.

"In the whole world nobody is paying more than $1 for a transit fee per barrel," Amum said.

Amum also said French supermajor Total has committed to begin exploring for oil soon over a vast stretch of South Sudan's Jonglei state.

Any oil found in the Block B concession, which Total has held for decades, could feed a pipeline the company may build from South Sudan to Uganda and on to Kenya's coast.

"Total has already committed themselves to start exploration this year, actually this month," Amum said. "They are here. The vice-president is in town. They are welcome."