Sudan Fails to Reach Oil Deal With South Sudan

Oil talks between Khartoum and Juba fail to produce a breakthrough

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February 14, 2012 (KHARTOUM) – The current round of talks between north and South Sudan on oil will likely be adjourned and resumed in two weeks time, an official in Khartoum said today.

Pagan Amum, South Sudan’s chief negotiator (AFP)

The two sides have been unable to reach a middle ground during almost five days of negotiations in the Ethiopian capital that are moderated by the African Union High-Level implementation Panel (AUHIP).

In this round, Khartoum’s delegation tabled a paper detailing its position on oil transit fees and how it should be calculated per barrel of crude exported by South Sudan through the pipelines.

But South Sudan’s negotiating team led by Sudan People Liberation Movement (SPLM) Secretary General Pagan Amum rejected Khartoum’s demand of $36 per barrel saying that this represents no change from previous figures.

In the past, Juba said that the fair fee should be around $1 per barrel of oil.

The Sudanese foreign ministry spokesperson Al-Obeid Marwih said that the two sides will return to the negotiating table by the end of this month. He revealed that a preliminary accord could be signed on other post secession issues such as borders and trade.

Specialised committees from the two countries will convene later this month to continue discussions on trade as well citizenship issues.

In a related issue, SPLM Secretary General said that Khartoum seized 2.4 million barrels of its oil in a continuation of measures implemented by the Sudanese government since late last year, which brings total volume of crude seized to 6 million barrels.

This included 1.2 million barrels taken in December, four shipments totalling roughly 2.5 million barrels in January and another 2.4 million barrels reported this month, according to figures provided to Reuters by South Sudan’s negotiating team in Addis Ababa.

“Yesterday we have been informed that the government of Sudan has again stolen 2.4 million barrels of our best quality crude oil,” Amum said, according to Reuters.

South Sudan took with it three quarters of Sudan’s daily oil production of 500,000 barrels when it seceded in July under a 2005 peace deal that ended more than two decades of civil war between the two sides.

Previous rounds of protracted negotiations failed to yield an agreement on a fair charge to transport South Sudan’s oil through Sudan’s infrastructure, triggering a crisis that saw Khartoum confiscating oil and Juba suspending production all together.

Juba has been insisting that it must be reimbursed for the oil Khartoum says it confiscated to make up for unpaid fees.

Amum said Sudan had released two vessels that had been waiting to load South Sudanese crude at Port Sudan but another six had arrived. Eight in total are now prevented from entering the port, he said.

“Six vessels were ready to come and load oil that they already bought, but they are not allowed to come to Port Sudan,” the senior SPLM official said.

“These companies are not coming because they have been informed that the oil they bought from South Sudan has been stolen by the government of Sudan,” he added.

Last week, Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir described Juba’s decision to halt oil production is “suicide”.

He accused Juba of seeking to strangle his country economically by this move but he dismissed it saying that his country’s gold exports are booming.

(ST)

http://www.sudantribune.com/Oil-talks-between-Khartoum-and,41608

Sudan Fails to Reach Oil Deal With South Sudan
Wall Street Journal
By NICHOLAS BARIYO Sudan on Tuesday failed to reach a much-awaited deal on oil transit fees with its land-locked neighbor, South Sudan, and seized an additional 2.4 million barrels of oil shipments, officials said late Tuesday.

South Sudan Oil Dispute Raises Specter Of War
Eurasia Review
By Gabe Joselow South Sudan and Sudan have been engaged in a war of words since the south stopped pumping oil to the north in a dispute about pricing. Both sides have warned that a return to violence is a possibility. South Sudan is retooling its armed …

SOUTH SUDAN: Briefing ? life without oil
Reuters AlertNet
South Sudan, one of the poorest countries in the world, reliant on oil for 98 percent of its revenues, in January took the drastic step of halting crude production, as a row with former civil war foe Sudan over transit fees hit a deadlock.

South Sudan accuses Sudan of breaking peace pact
KTAR.com
By JOHN HEILPRIN JUBA, South Sudan (AP) – South Sudan is accusing its northern neighbor Sudan of violating a non-aggression agreement between the two nations just hours after it was signed. South Sudanese military officials on Tuesday said Sudan …

Asia-Pacific Crude-Pyrenees hits fresh high on tight supply
Reuters Africa
SINGAPORE, Feb 15 (Reuters) – Australian heavy sweet crude surged in Asia on Wednesday with Pyrenees trading at a fresh high in April after storms reduced output and as South Sudan stopped exports. No resolution is in sight for a resumption of output …

Bangladesh Officials Discuss Investment With Ministry of Commerce
AllAfrica.com
By Misuk Moses Mule, 15 February 2012 Juba — The Minister of Commerce, Industry and Investment, Garang Diing Akuang and the Bangladesh delegation yesterday discussed plans of investment in South Sudan. The discussion was held at the minister’s office …

South Sudan’s VP declares his net worth, urges peers to do same
Sudan Tribune
February 14, 2012 (JUBA) – The Vice President of the Republic of South Sudan, Riek Machar, has officially declared his personal income, assets and liabilities while calling on all constitutional post-holders in the country to do the same.

South Sudan in dire need of unity
Borglobe
In a short article entitled ‘the Myth of South Sudan‘, published in Pambazuka News, Issue No. 569 of February 2012, Makol Bona Malwal has the following to say: “Most South Sudanese have little idea what the country stands for, what binds its people …

African Union fails to elect new chief

By Aaron Maasho and Yara Bayoumy | Reuters 

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) – The African Union failed to elect a new head on Monday, highlighting the weakness of a group criticized for slow decision-making during political turmoil on the continent last year.

Former South African Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zumawas up against incumbent commission chairman Jean Ping of Gabon, who failed to win an outright majority in four rounds of voting.

The commission is the AU secretariat’s top organ and the chair its public face.

Smaller countries said Zuma’s candidacy broke an unwritten rule that the continent’s dominant states do not contest the leadership. “South Africa’s decision to do so turns everything upside down,” a West African delegate said.

“You could say they may have not voted for Ping but the smaller countries are skeptical of the big countries,” he said.

Analysts said Ping’s attempts to juggle the diverse views of its 54 members had hampered decision-making on Libya after the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi.

“The weakness that Jean Ping had was not being forthcoming in putting his own opinion… the commission is a bureaucracy and it doesn’t have its own position but that of member states,” Mahari Taddele Maru, an African Union analyst at International Security Studies said.

The AU recognized the National Transitional Council as Libya’s de facto government long after most European nations, the U.S. and Nigeria. A Libyan delegate, describing the AU as “indecisive up to the last moment,” said the commission should be given more authority.

A member of the AU’s communications team said after hours of deliberation in the new Chinese-built AU headquarters in the Ethiopian capital that Ping had won 32 votes in the last round, four short of the number needed for a majority.

The African Union has not yet made an official announcement.

SOUTH AFRICAN ROLE

South Africa, which has complained the United Nations needs to pay more attention to the pan-African body, especially when it comes to African crises, had pushed Zuma’s candidacy hard, saying the AU needed the strong leadership she could give it.

“The incumbent could not win a two-thirds majority after four rounds so this is very very clear, that leaders of this continent want change and they want it now,” said South African Foreign Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane.

She said the rules dictated that the deputy chairman, Kenya’s Erastus Mwencha, would become interim chair until the next round of elections that would probably take place in six months at the next summit in Malawi.

South African President Jacob Zuma’s failure to secure a majority for Dlamini-Zuma, his ex-wife, after Ping’s much criticized tenure dealt a blow to South Africa, which regards itself as an emerging power championing African causes, but is seen by some other states as a step behind global affairs.

Envoys at climate talks in Durban last year criticized the largest economy in Africa for failing to get delegates to agree on a deal before two weeks of talks ended.

Pretoria also blocked a visit by the Dalai Lama to attend the 80th birthday of South African hero Desmond Tutu.

“President Zuma has been criticized for a weak foreign policy on Africa so he had to show his direction. This will be a crisis for him, that his first attempt to come up with a way to repair his policy has been defeated,” Maru said.

(Writing by Yara Bayoumy; Editing by Duncan Miriri and Philippa Fletcher)

http://news.yahoo.com/african-union-fails-elect-chief-182151623.html

A high level Chinese delegation visits Republic of South Sudan

JUBA, 13 January 2012 – A high level Chinese delegation comprising of top officials from the Communist Party of China (CPC), Chinese government and Chinese businessmen led by H.E Li Yuanchoa, a senior member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China arrived in Juba today in the morning.
The visit that is aimed at boosting bilateral ties between the two countries is expected to see H.E Li holding meetings with the President of the Republic of South Sudan H.E Salva Kiir Mayardit and later lead the delegation for bilateral discussions with a team of senior officials of the SPLM and national government headed by the Secretary General of the SPLM Cde. Pagan Amum.

H.E Li being received at the Juba International Airport by top SPLM and government officers.
[Photo: Matata Safi]
In a press release issued by the SPLM, a number of documents on strengthening bilateral ties and cooperation will be signed. Among these are Transition Agreement; Agreement on training between China National Petroleum Corporation and South Sudan’s national Ministry of Petroleum and Mining; Memorandum of Understanding between the government of the Republic of South Sudan and the government of the People’s Republic of China concerning a medical team to work in South Sudan; Memorandum of Understanding for economic and financial cooperation between the government of the Republic of South Sudan represented by the Minister of Finance and Economic Planning and the Export-Bank of China; Handover of Certificate of the Borehole Drilling Project aided by the Chinese government to South Sudan; and exchange of letters between the Chinese vice minister for Commerce Mr. Chen Jian and his counterpart, the deputy minister for International Cooperation.
H.E Li who from the airport headed to Dr. John Garang Mausoleum to pay tribute was expected later in the day to also visit a Chinese government donated school called Friendship Secondary School in Juba located on Gudele Road after HASS Petrol Station.

H.E Li lays a wreath on the grave of Dr. Garang.
[Photo: Matata Safi]
China is among the first countries in the world to recognize South Sudan’s independence. Several Chinese firms are already investing in the Republic of South Sudan especially in the oil industry and construction sector. H.E Li is one of the most senior Chinese officials to visit South Sudan since the region gained its independence on 9th July 2011.
Reported by Matata Safi

http://www.goss.org/

South Sudan signs MoU with UAE Investment Company

ABU DHABI – UAE, 12 January 2012 – As part of the ongoing efforts to mobilize foreign investment to the country, the newly founded and underdeveloped Republic of South Sudan has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the leading Abu Dhabi Investment Company of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in order to invest in various sectors in South Sudan.
The Company has expressed its willingness and readiness to invest in South Sudan and also help to mobilize other partners from Europe, America and Asia to invest in the country. The Vice President of the Republic of South Sudan, Hon. Dr. Riek Machar, signed the MoU with the Company’s CEO, Nazem Fawwaz Al Kudsi yesterday in Abu Dhabi city.
Areas of cooperation and investment by the company include railways, roads and bridges, housing estate, aviation, shipping, energy and utilities, oil and gas services, financing and securitization, telecommunications, ICT services, minerals and mining, banking, sports facilities, among others.

 

South Sudan VP, Dr. Riek Machar (left), signs MoU with CEO of Invest AD, Nazem Fawwaz (center) in Abu Dhabi, January 11, 2012.
Relevant respective ministries in South Sudan will work out the details of the priority areas or projects with the company. The governor of Unity state, Taban Deng Gai, also signed a MoU with the same company, at the same occasion, on infrastructures projects in his state.

 

The Abu Dhabi Investment Company, also known as ‘Investment AD’, was founded in 1977 by decree of the late His Highness Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan, ruler of Abu Dhabi and President of the United Arab Emirates. It was originally to invest on behalf of the Abu Dhabi government. In 2007 the company was given a new mandate, to attract and manage third-party funds, in addition to the investment of government assets.

 

Owned by the Abu Dhabi Investment Council, Invest AD is closely aligned with the long-term diversification and growth objectives of the Abu Dhabi authorities as expressed in the government’s long-term strategy, the Abu Dhabi 2030 Vision, with special focus on Africa and the Middle East.
Dr. Machar also met with a number of other potential investors who similarly expressed their interest to invest in the region. He told the investors that his country is managing high expectations of the people after the region gained independence from the Sudan in July 2011, adding that South Sudan seeks to mobilize up to 500 billion worth of investment in the next five years.
Reported by James Gatdet Dak, the Vice President’s Press Secretary

http://www.goss.org/

FAREWEL, DEAR DR KHALIL by Edward Abyei Lino

Edward Abyei Lino

The news that discontinued the flow of the joyous atmosphere of our first Christmas to celebrate after our independence was the unpleasant news about the assassination of Dr Khalil Ibrahim! It was so detestable like putting salt in our tea. Indeed, it was so shocking for it is too early for the man to depart in that most crewel way, at the time in which everything was prepared and moving smoothly to bell that most inhuman cat called al-Bashier. He must have shouted very high and loud, enchanting “Allahu Akbar! Alhamdu lil-Lah” for receiving the news about the savage murder of one of his closest in-laws, Dr Khalil!
The two people the Islamic fundamentalists feared most were Dr John Garang and Dr Khalil Ibrahim, because the Islamists do not fear God in all their dealings. They much dreaded Dr John when he advanced towards Kassala heading to Khartoum. And they feared Dr Khalil when he reached Omdurman and did what he wanted for more than three hours without any confrontation, sending a big guy like Dr Naafe Ali Naafe panicking rushing to airport and Salah Gosh in his civil clothes at the verge of abandoning Khartoum for good, as they shall soon panic the very day Abdel-Aziz Adam al-Hilu and Malik Agaar Ire shall move from different directions to that Islamists infested city, Khartoum. Nothing shall salvage them from their ultimate doom, whether they claim to have assassinated Dr Khalil Ibrahim or choose to celebrate the murder of Daud Bolad and the air crush of Dr John Garang openly or in privacy.
That soothsayer called al-Sawarmi Khalid, a Colonel in that Sudan army, tried his best to concoct a story that Dr Khalil was hit during the battle with their forces at Wadbanda and quoted other skirmishes somewhere around Nuhud on his way to the east, which he forged to be on his way to South Sudan to get organized! The truth is Dr Khalil was bombed with his two bodyguards far away from where Col al-Sawarmi indicated to have been gunned down in the battle. He added South Sudan simply, because they still panic from the days of war when al-Sawarmi was a junior officer with a pip on his shivering shoulders, the way cocks fear kites right from the time they were chicks. From where they reported the war to have taken place in western part of North Kordufan to South Sudan and from there to Khartoum where their enemy abides, are almost the same.

But habitually, they would always add South Sudan to be the cause of their woes beside America, Israel, Western World and Churches like dictated by their inherent Islamic fundamentalist culture of fear!
However, the Sudanese army as we know them have no capability what-so-ever to under-take such a complicated electronic war-fare. What they know is how to spray poisonous gases left-over from the days of Saddam Hussein on our poor civilians; raping, pillaging and burning villages like dictated by ‘jihad’! What the Sudan military spokesman attempted to do was to claim what happened to be of their making, while Israel operates freely these days killing elements of Hamas along Red Sea State. The truth is: Dr Khalil was assassinated somewhere far in the Sahara Desert along Wadi-Hawar, where his Thuraya phone was picked by an advanced high altitude surveillance plane which targeted him with two body-guards near the Libyan-Chadian boarders, without suggesting the involvement of any of the two countries and without negating the probability of having crossed through any one of them.
Of course, of late the Dar-Furi Problem has reached sensitive proportions with the involvement of Libya under an outgoing Moamer al-Ghaddafi and Qatar, involved in the fight against Gaddafi. Given the manner in which Dr Khalil Ibrahim turned his back at Doha Peace Talks, which he refused to sign, leading to the loss of President Debbi’s open support to him and his subsequent stay under close surveillance in Libya under the eyes of Col. Moamer al-Gaddafi, many cooks arose to prepare what could kill him. It was during the civil war in Libya in which the Sudan Military Intelligence and National Security Service did their level best to trap and kill him during the turmoil, but they utterly failed to reach him.
To hunt or trap a seasoned guerrilla leader like Dr Khalil like a fish in the ocean, was not that simple game to be under-taken by a wanted criminal like Omer al-Bashier, a confused simpleton like Col. al-Sawarmi Khalid, a Mongolian nut alike Abdel-Rahim Hussein or a non-intellectual killer like Mohammed Atta. That endeavour entails more intellectual readiness to under-take it. They even claimed to have poisoned Dr Khalil Ibrahim with six of his aides when he was in Tripoli during the war, which came to be the cheapest propaganda ever made by a desperado. Eventually that saga was crowned by Dr Khalil’s most triumphant return to his motherland with a mountain of lethal means like a determined fighting Leader, which shall quieten Khartoum in a few months to come.
Yes, indeed, many of us might have rightly or wrongly differed with the ideological direction which Dr Khalil cherished for long. But for sure, we all stand to admire the man who kept his position very clear specially, when he returned from Doha and Libya. Foremost, Dr Khalil refused to be directed by Arab chauvinism and refused to embrace Islamist pretence as an African man whose marriage was concluded in the court to one of the daughters of a close relative to al-Bashier himself, who stood against the marriage because he considered it to be haram since he, Omer al-Bashier, considers Dr Khalil to be a “slave” like any black African person, in spite of the fact that Dr Khalil was a very devoted Muslim and they were both members of the same Islamic party which took Dr Khalil Ibrahim to fight a ‘jihadist war’ in Southern Sudan.

Dr Khalil stood firm against being taken like an obedient slave, and so are almost all the Dar-Furians.
Before his great march to Khartoum, Dr Khalil declared for the first time that he would firmly abide by what the people want. He promised to stand firm for the liberation of the marginalized people of Sudan. He promised to stand for democracy like desired by every Sudanese person. So he stood until his death for justice and equality of the Sudanese people. After his return from Libya Dr Khalil had no master in Khartoum to whom power should be delivered. He was a free man struggling for peace and freedom. That stand sent a shocking wave to Khartoum, as they saw their doom coming, firmly mounted on many a Landcruiser!
History shall record that the Arab Islamists in the Sudan premeditatedly murdered Sultan Ali Dinar in 1916, Commander Daud Yahya Bolad in 1991 and Dr Khalil Ibrahim in 2011 almost with the same degree of brutality, in order to subdue Dar-Fur! Sultan Ali Dinar was murdered by the British, but the fellow who shot the bullets which killed him was a Sudanese national serving in the colonial army as a sergeant and who happened to be the grandfather of Ali Osman Mohammed Taha. Comrade Bolad was betrayed and offered by a traitor, Ja’far Abdel-Hakam his maternal uncle to Atheyib Mohamed Kheir ‘Siekha’ who murdered him and burnt him as an apostate, as he believes, in order not to let him to be buried in his motherland. And here today comes the news of the assassination of Dr Khalil Ibrahim in the same sad sequence. I strongly believe this should remain a lesson to every son and daughter of Dar-Fur in the leadership of his or her people. It is either one becomes like Kibir to live lavishly beyond your means in the slave market selling your people or live with your people like Dr Khalil or Bolad in the battlefield.
Big shame on every daughter and son of Dar-Fur, if they happened to turn their backs against the words of Comrade Daud Bolad to Dr John Garang in Nzara in 1990; when he was asked by Dr Garang as to why he wanted to join the SPLM-SPLA being a well known Islamic fundamentalist leader. Comrade Yahya Bolad replied him that in the end of the day he discovered that “blood was thicker than religion”! And immediately all what he said was accepted and he was welcomed into the Movement. I appeal to those who are fond of splitting unity of our people in Dar-Fur to stop that nasty game. Time has come for any one of you to keep united to fulfil the will of your martyrs and peace-loving people of Dar-Fur. However, sometimes the fall of such a calamity would bacon us to return to our roots to resolve all the problems.
May the Almighty God bless Dr Khalil and rest his justice and equality seeking soul right in Heaven. I sincerely send my condolences to all his colleagues in the field and hail them to continue the march. My heart-felt sympathies to every member of his small and large families and to those who were dispersed by the police with live bullets wherever his funeral. Dr Khalil Ibrahim led a life of a formidable and determined freedom fighter and so shall his memory live in the annals of history, for the great do not die the way we simply die, unless with the withering of their revolutionary ideas and deeds. Dr Khalil Oyeee!! Dar-Fur Oyeee!! New Sudan Oyeeee!!!
http://www.sudaneseonline.com/english/articles-and-analysis/4761-farewel-dear-dr-khalil-by-edward-abyei-lino.html