South Sudan Says Total Should Start Work, Offers Base
Southern Sudan offered Total SA land to build a base and start operating in the North African country, said John Luk Jok, the nation's energy minister.
Total has been allocated block 5B, in the eastern province of Jonglei, which covers an area of 117,000 square kilometers (45,174 square miles), Jok said in a telephone interview today from the capital, Juba. The company was also offered a piece of land in Bor, Jonglei, to build a base, he said.
``A startup date hasn't been set because we still have to restructure the partnership,'' Total spokesman Philippe Gateau said in a telephone interview from Paris. Total is temporarily holding the stake ceded in March by Marathon Oil Corp., the fourth-largest U.S. oil company, he said.
Southern Sudan was recognized as a semiautonomous state in 2005 following a peace agreement that ended more than 20 years of war with the government in Khartoum. At least 2 million people died in the conflict. Sudan is sub-Saharan Africa's third-biggest oil producer, after Nigeria and Angola, producing about 500,000 barrels of oil a day.
``Before resuming operations, we also have to make sure that the conditions will be safe enough for our workers on site,'' Gateau said.
The Southern Sudanese government is working to improve security in the region's oil fields following recent attacks by ``armed thugs,'' energy minister Jok said. Cattle rustlers were responsible for the violence, which ``has nothing to do with oil companies. We will deal with the cattle thieves and security will prevail in that area.''
Violence
Jok added that oil companies should train local workers and employ them in the industry.
Block B was the subject of a legal dispute between Total and White Nile Ltd., a U.K.-based oil company founded by former England cricketer Phil Edmonds.
Sudan's National Petroleum Commission last year ordered White Nile to cease its exploration in Block B.
The company claimed a part of the block, known as Ba, under a deal it reached with officials from the former rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement, which signed the peace accord with the northern government in 2005. The government in Khartoum awarded Block B to Total and other companies in 1980.
Total owns 32.5 percent of Block B and is holding Marathon's 32.5 percent share until it can find another company to take part of the stake, Gateau said. At least 10 percent will probably go to a company owned by the southern Sudanese government, he said.
The two other partners in the concession are the Kuwait Foreign Petroleum Exploration Co., with 25 percent, and the Sudan state oil company with 10 percent.
The main companies producing oil in Sudan are China National Petroleum Corp., China's biggest oil company; Malaysia's state-owned Petroliam Nasional Bhd, or Petronas; and ONGC Videsh Ltd., a unit of India's Oil & Natural Gas Corp. Ltd.
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