Sudan, South Sudan agree to extend oil financial arrangements deal

Sudan and South Sudan on Tuesday agreed to extend the financial arrangements agreement in the oil field, which was signed in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in 2013, official SUNA news agency reported.

"This agreement was set for three years. We have agreed to extend it for another three years," the agency quoted Mohamed Zayed Awad, Sudan's Minister of Petroleum and Gas, as saying.

He explained that South Sudan's oil transit fees through Sudan's territories would remain as it is with 20 U.S. dollars per barrel.

South Sudan's Minister of Petroleum Ezekiel Gatkuoth, for his part, expressed happiness over the two countries' agreement to extend the oil financial arrangements deal, the report said.

He reiterated his country's commitment to implementing all items of the agreement, saying that the two sides have agreed to cooperate in the oil filed and re-operate the stopped oil fields in addition to training, capacity building and research and laboratories via the oil training center.

The oil deal, signed between Sudan and South Sudan in September 2012, stipulates that Juba would pay three billion dollars as assistance to Sudan in a period of three years, besides that South Sudan's government would pay about 20 dollars as oil transit fees per barrel.

Before the signing of the agreement, Sudan suggested allotting a portion of South Sudan's oil as transit fees instead of specifying a figure, but South Sudan then dismissed the proposal and insisted on determining a figure, which is 20 dollars per barrel.

Juba seems to have found itself forced to cut on its financial expenditure under the declining global oil prices and dropping of the South's oil production to about 160,000 barrels a day due to the ongoing civil war in the new-born state since 2013. Endit