S.sudan woos investors as peace deal revives oil industry

AFP, 21ST NOVEMBER, 2018-South Sudan said Wednesday that the country’s latest peace deal had helped revive its war-battered oil sector, with an increase of 20,000 barrels per day in the past two months.

The country’s warring parties in September signed a new peace deal to end five years of civil war that has killed an estimated 380,000 people and crippled the oil industry, which funded about 98 percent of its budget.

Petroleum Minister Ezekiel Lol Gatkuoth told hundreds of investors attending a three-day forum in Juba that the peace deal had revived activity in Unity State, raising production from 135,000 to 155,000 barrels per day. “we are aggressively informing the whole world that the potentials are very high here,” Gatkuoth told South Sudan’s second Africa Oil and Power conference.

“Now with this peace let’s go back to where we were,” he added.at its peak, oil production in South Sudan was at 350,000 barrels a day.

The oil sector’s revival was a key part of the peace deal mediated by Sudan, whose economy has also suffered from the slowdown in oil output to the south.