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Tuesday, 14 October, 2008, 18:20 GMT | more prices >>

White Nile asked to give up Block B



By Upstream staff 

Sudan has asked UK player White Nile to withdraw from Block B, which is under dispute, adding it will pay White Nile compensation for the move, Industry Minister Albino Akol Akol said today.

"White Nile is to pull out from Block B, and its properties will have to be assessed by a technical committee appointed by the Ministry of Energy & Mining to be refunded," Akol told Reuters.

The block was disputed between French oil giant Total and the UK explorer, which is 50% owned by the semi-autonomous south Sudan government oil company Nilepet.

Total had taken the dispute to a UK court, but the decision to ask White Nile to withdraw was made by the Sudanese National Petroleum Commission which under a north-south peace deal has authority to assign oil contracts.

Akol is a member of the commission. He said the exact consortium percentages of Block B were as yet unclear, but the south's state oil company Nilepet and the northern state company Sudapet would each have a 10% share.

"So the percentages of the consortium will have to change," he added.

However, White Nile said in a statement released later today that it had received no official indications that it would be asked to withdraw from Block Ba. It said it was attempting to contact figures in the South Sudan government to clarify the situation.

South Sudan's semi-autonomous government had allowed exploratory drilling by White Nile in areas already claimed by Total, which says it signed with Khartoum before a 2005 peace deal ended more than two decades of north-south civil war.

Most of Sudan's oil lies in the landlocked south, although refineries and pipelines are in the north.

White Nile started drilling its first well in its disputed 67,000 square kilometre concession in Jonglei state earlier this year.

Its block, Block Ba, was part of a larger concession, Block B previously assigned to the Total-led consortium by the Khartoum government.

White Nile had estimated that it had between 3 billion and 5 billion barrels of oil in Block Ba concession, but that it would take four years before the oil would start to flow.

South Sudan's Vice President Riek Machar had said White Nile would work together with Total in the block.


Friday, 06 July, 2007, 12:30 GMT  | last updated: Friday, 06 July, 2007, 15:56 GMT

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