Business
South Sudan and Sudan tussle over oil continues
Plans by South Sudan to build an alternative pipeline through Kenya are expected to acquire fresh urgency in coming weeks as Juba shops for a route to export its oil following the closure of its current transport facility.
South Sudan on Friday announced it had decided to shut down the oil pipeline that runs through North Sudan to the export terminal at Port Sudan on the Red Sea, citing endless row with Khartoum.
Information minister Barnaba Marial Benjamin said the decision was reached at a Council of Ministers meeting chaired by President Salva Kiir on Friday and followed the recent failed talks in Addis Ababa.
South Sudan accused its northern neighbour of imposing a “per barrel penalty for secession.”
South Sudan, which gained independence from Sudan last July, is entirely dependent on oil revenues to meet 98 percent of her budgetary obligations.
But Petroleum and Mining minister Stephen Dhieu said the government will adapt “new measures to deal with the new situation” and insisted his country could “also exist without oil.
