Sudan to offer 27 oil concessions in global bidding round

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The government of Sudan plans to offer to investors concessions of 27 oil blocks in the country via a global bid, Acting Energy Minister Kheiri Abdelrahman told a local television channel this weekend.

Sudan aims to attract investors with access to modern technologies for the blocks on offer, of which three are offshore, and 24 are onshore blocks, Radio Dabanga news outlet reported.

Sudan’s oil production took a hit in 2011 when South Sudan broke from Sudan and took with it around 350,000 bpd  in oil production.

After South Sudan’s secession from Sudan, the two countries have been mutually dependent on oil revenues because the south has 75 percent of the oil reserves, while the north has the only current transport route for the oil to international markets.

Sudan and its economy, however, have never fully recovered from the loss of oil production since the secession of South Sudan.

The secession of South Sudan led to a sharp decline in Sudan’s oil exports and fiscal revenues, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said in its latest report on Sudan last month. With South Sudan’s secession, Sudan lost about 75 percent of oil production, 66 percent of exports, and half of fiscal revenues, the IMF noted.

Going forward, the fund assumes that by 2040 oil will be increasingly less important for the Sudan economy, which was producing 72,000 barrels per day (bpd) in 2019. Aging oil fields, along with moderate exploration, are set to keep oil production flat over the medium term. The price of Sudan’s crude oil is projected to average $42 a barrel in the medium term, the IMF said in October.

Meanwhile, Sudan and South Sudan have recently signed a draft agreement  under which Sudan will help South Sudan to restart production from Block 5A and will provide technical assistance on blocks 03 and 07, all of them located on the border between the two states.