The government of South Sudan is keen to attract investment from abroad to help develop its still nascent oil sector and build the infrastructure that is so badly needed in the land-locked south. This comes as its former civil war foe Sudan had given assurances that is has no intention of following through on earlier threats to shut down the cross-border pipeline carrying Southern oil to Port Sudan in the north for export.
South Sudan broke away from Sudan in mid-2011, taking with it around three quarters of Sudan’s former 470,000 b/d oil production. But the South remains highly dependent on Sudan as it has no crude oil refining capacity, nor alternate export routes. Till now it has relied on imports of refined products from neighboring countries like Sudan or Uganda, both via official channels and by means of cross-border smuggling. (CONTINUED - 747 WORDS)
