Of the major foreign oil companies operating in Sudan and Southern Sudan today, Malaysia’s state-owned Petronas stands to be the biggest beneficiary of the long-awaited restart of production and export of Southern Sudanese oil, Moody’s Investors Service said earlier this week. Moody’s vice president and senior analyst Simon Wong suggested Petronas would benefit most from the resumption of oil production because its output from the two Sudans makes up a larger proportion of its global production than is the case with the other producing companies in Sudan and South Sudan – state-run China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) and India’s Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC). Juba has ordered oil companies in South Sudan to resume production, after agreeing with Sudan to a restart of Southern oil exports through the north, ending a near 14-month shutdown caused by a disagreement over oil transit fees (MEES, 15 March).
Crude production in the two Sudans accounted for about 7% of Petronas’ total output in 2011, Mr Wong said, whereas it accounted for less than 4% of both CNPC and ONGC’s total production over the same period. “The successful resumption of production in South Sudan could see Petronas’ production increase by about 120,000 b/d. Its production in Sudan was reduced by over 84% to 23,000 b/d from 147,000 b/d in 2012,” he continued. Petronas holds stakes in three of Sudan and South Sudan’s four producing consortia: 30% in the GNPOC (Blocks 1, 2, 4), which in 2011 produced 100,000 b/d of Nile Blend on average; 40% of Petrodar (Blocks 3, 7), which produced around 240,000 b/d of Dar Blend in 2011; and 68.875% of the WNPOC (Block 5a), which in 2011 produced around 12,500 b/d of Nile Blend. (CONTINUED - 272 WORDS)
