South Sudan’s oil production has plummeted to 140,000 barrels per day from the previous 160,000 bpd in 2022 following recent heavy flooding in the northern oil fields.
This was revealed by the minister of petroleum Puot Kang Chol in the South Sudan capital, Juba on Thursday.
“The oil production level in South Sudan is currently 140,000 barrels per day, you know the flooding has so much affected us it was high but when the floods came it took most of the wells,” Kang told journalists on the sidelines of the Juba economic forum.
He said they are currently reinstating oil wells which were previously submerged by water.
Kang said they have repaired 300 wells operated by the Dar Petroleum Operating Company, and more than 239 wells operated by the Greater Pioneer Operating Company (GPOC) and Sudd Petroleum Operating Company (SPOC) respectively.
DPOC is a consortium made up of China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), state-owned Nilepet, Malaysia’s Petronas, Sinopec, and Tri-Ocean Energy operating the main oil fields Block 3 and 7 in the Melut Basin in Upper Nile state.
The Unity state oil fields are operated by GPOC a consortium of CNPC, Petronas, ONGC Videsh and Nilepet.
In addition, Kang noted that production at the Tharjath refinery in Unity state has also been affected by flooding.
The refinery with 10,000 bpd capacity is currently refining 300 barrels to maintain the equipment as they seek accessibility solutions.
“We had to shut it off because the tanks are full but we have no road to evacuate oil products,” he said.
Kang disclosed that they have 12 new oil blocks that are open for grabs by investors.
“We have currently around 12 blocs that have not yet been licensed to anybody, we believe they will continue to produce, we will not have a problem with that but our problem will be global issues with diesel fuel,” he said.
Kang added that oil-producing countries like South Sudan were urged during the recent climate change conference (Cop 27) held in Egypt to transition from diesel fuel to clean energy.
“Our responsibility from the ministry of petroleum is to encourage South Sudan government and the people to move into sectors like agriculture, mining, and tourism. These are very much reliable in terms of production,” he said.
