South Sudan struggling to maintain oil exports

Awow Daniel Chuong, a technical advisor at the Ministry of Petroleum. (File photo)

South Sudan is battling to secure critical oil equipment and supplies for production due to the ongoing war in Sudan, a senior official said.

South Sudan sends its crude oil to Port Sudan on the Red Sea coast of its northern neighbour via a 1600-kilometre pipeline.

 Oil accounts for up to 90% of government revenues.

Speaking to Radio Tamazuj during the Oil and Power Conference in Juba on Friday, Awow Daniel Chuong, a technical advisor at the Ministry of Petroleum, said the war in Sudan is affecting the supply of essential materials required for oil production.

“Oil cannot run without the critical materials that are required for production because the oil route that we used to rely on, especially in the oilfields, is the route of Port Sudan, and now the crisis in Sudan is not making things simple today, things are very difficult,” Daniel said.

Daniel said the government is considering an alternative oil export route through Ethiopia to Djibouti. In September 2022, Juba bought land in Djibouti to build a new export terminal.

 “Djibouti route is one of the routes that has already been explored a long time ago but today, people are working very hard to open this route so that we can have an alternative route. The route of Sudan will continue to be there, but also still we need an alternative route, the route of Kenya is there, but also in terms of costs, it can be very difficult,” he said. 

The technical advisor announced that the country currently produces 170,000 barrels of crude oil daily.

“Oil production is picking up now. It dropped drastically to less than 120,000 barrels per day, but it is picking up. It is 170,000 barrels per day now, but again we are being constrained by the crisis in Sudan, which will make it drop again because of logistics,” he said.

Peter Biar Ajak, a South Sudanese scholar in the Belfer Centre's International Security Programme in the US, recently told Al Jazeera that the country is concerned that if the fighting continues the pipeline could be damaged.