CAIRO: Sudan revenues earned from fees levied on South Sudanese crude transiting its oil pipeline total 5.7 billion Sudanese pounds ($1 billion) in 2013, the country's finance minister said on Tuesday.
This is the first year in which the country collected fees from landlocked South Sudan to refine its crude and export it via Port Sudan on the Red Sea, making the oil a chief source of income for both states.
"The current flow of oil from South Sudan is running at 239,000 barrels a day," said Finance Minister Badr El-Din Mahmoud.
Sudan has voiced fears that the South Sudanese conflict could further affect the flow of oil through its territory and harm its already ailing economy.
The Khartoum government had prepared a worst-case scenario in case the South Sudanese oil stopped flowing due to the conflict there, Mahmoud said, but did not provide any further details at his press conference.
Mediators said the South Sudan government and rebels had agreed a ceasefire on Tuesday, though there was no immediate confirmation from either side or sign of an end to ethnic fighting that has ravaged the world's youngest nation.
Western and regional powers have pushed both sides to end the fighting which has split the oil-producing country barely two years after it won independence from Sudan.
It has also raised fears of an all-out civil war between the main Dinka and Nuer ethnic groups which could destabilize a fragile East African region.
At least 1,000 people have been killed in two weeks of fighting between Nuer soldiers loyal to former Vice President Riek Machar and troops backing South Sudan President Salva Kiir, from the Dinka.
Sudan's economy has been in turmoil since South Sudan seceded in 2011, taking with it about three-quarters of the country's oil reserves the main source of government revenue and the dollars it needs for food and other vital imports.
Mahmoud said the country's inflation rate slowed to 42 percent in December from 46 percent last year, but said he hoped it will drop to 20.9 percent by the end of next year without describing measures that might be taken.
Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir's cabinet underwent a shake-up earlier this month and a new central bank governor was named in a bid to give his rule a facelift after violent protests against subsidy cuts.
In September, the government lifted most fuel subsidies to help overcome a budget crisis, a move that doubled pump prices overnight and triggered protests in which dozens of people were killed and more than 700 people arrested.
The central bank devalued the Sudanese pound by 22.6 percent against the dollar in November, the second such move in just over a year.
The scarcity of dollars had become acute and financial sources said the central bank had started using the general reserves of commercial banks, which are intended to be held as deposits with the central bank.
Comments
Comments are closed.