Egypt’s Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources, Tarek El-Mulla, will participate in the South Sudan Oil & Power (SSOP) Conference along with his S. Sudanese counterpart Awow Daniel Chuang, on 29-30 October to discuss the sector’s challenges, financing means, and investments. The conference will also discuss means of developing the society, environmental problems, and oilfield technology.
Together South Sudan and Egypt produce 850,000 barrels of oil per day – almost 90% of the entire production of the Nile Basin region.
South Sudan’s Ministry of Petroleum has made numerous appeals for oilfield technology providers to enter the country, as it has Africa’s third largest oil reserves.
“We are very excited to confirm Tarek El-Molla and a delegation from Egypt to this year’s South Sudan Oil & Power,” said Guillaume Doane, CEO of Africa Oil & Power. The participation of Nile Basin countries and stimulating regional trade is a big priority for this year’s conference. Egypt has tremendous technical experience that can deliver significant value to South Sudan’s petroleum and power industries,” he added.
Egypt is in position to take a leading role in overhauling South Sudan’s oil production, with Egypt’s Minister of Petroleum agreeing to speak at the conference. The announcement comes in the wake of a major new oil discovery in the Adar oilfield in Block 3 containing more than 300m barrels of recoverable oil.
The Egyptian delegation to Juba will include a group of private and public sector companies to discuss Egypt-South Sudan petroleum cooperation. There are numerous opportunities for investors to enter South Sudan’s recovering oil and energy sector, as Egypt has a dynamic on- and offshore oil industry and is the largest oil producer in the Nile Basin region.
“The Ministry of Petroleum is committed to working closely with its partners to make available the significant opportunities in the South Sudanese oil and gas sector to new entrants,” Minister Chuang said in an invitation to Egyptian companies to visit Juba for SSOP.
The South Sudanese government estimates that only one-fourth of South Sudan has been explored to date. The country is dedicated return to pre-war production levels of 350,000 barrels of oil per day by 2020 through increasing production in Greater Pioneer Operating Company’s recently rehabilitated oilfields and resuming production in Sudd Petroleum Operating Company’s fields.
Minister Chuang will announce a tender for oil exploration in South Sudan in 2020 at two strategic conferences this October, it will launch another tender for environmental audit for the country’s producing oilfields at the SSOP conference.
