WAR-TORN SOUTH SUDAN TO RESUME OIL PRODUCTION

Emboldened by a new peace deal, civil war-torn South Sudan says it will resume oil production in a key region next month to make up for more than $4 billion of revenue lost during years of fighting. South Sudan, with Africa’s third-largest oil reserves, will renew drilling in northern Unity State for the first time since the fields were destroyed when the conflict began in late 2013, oil ministry officials told The Associated Press. The goal is to have all five locations there operational by the end of the year and working alongside the oil fields in Upper Nile State, which operated throughout the civil war. South Sudan’s economy is almost entirely dependent on exports of oil from its 3.5 billion barrels of reserves. Most of the oil rigs were shut down or destroyed by the civil war.