Sudan and South Sudan will discuss plans to recover oil infrastructure and production next week, the foreign minister of Sudan said on Friday.
The oil talks will be held when South Sudan's President Salva Kiir visits Sudan's capital Khartoum next week. The South Sudan president is scheduled to attend a new round of talks with rebel leader Riek Machar in Khartoum next week.
Earlier this month, Sudan and South Sudan were said to have agreed to jointly repair oil infrastructure that was damaged during the bloody civil war that resulted in the split in 2011.
The infrastructure should be repaired within the next three months in order to allow the ramp-up of oil production in the youngest nation in Africa, which also took most of the old country's oil wealth.
South Sudan is almost completely dependent on oil revenues, not least because of the decades-old civil war going on in the united Sudan that ruined the country's agriculture. What's more, the new state is fighting its own civil war between government forces and an army loyal to the former deputy president Riek Machar.
The two countries have also agreed to set up a joint guard of the South Sudan oil fields to prevent militant attacks on the critical industry.
Like South Sudan, Sudan has been eager to build an oil industry after the split with South Sudan in 2011. After the secession, the two countries have remained mutually dependent on oil revenues, with South Sudan owning 75 percent of the oil reserves, while the north owns the only current transport route to get oil to international markets.
Earlier this week, Sudan's Ministry of Oil and Gas said that a delegation from South Sudan would arrive in Sudan's capital Khartoum at the end of this month to discuss ways to boost oil production.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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Tsvetana is a writer for Oilprice.com with over a decade of experience writing for news outlets such as iNVEZZ and SeeNews. More