07 April 2012, Sweetcrude, KHARTOUM – South Sudan says Sudan is building an “illegal” 25-kilometre oil pipeline across the border, towards its (South Sudan’s) oilfields to still its oil.
This came after talks to resolve a lingering oil dispute between the two countries originally scheduled for Thursday were postponed.
South Sudan’s army “discovered an illegal pipeline that was being built by Sudan,”military spokesman Philip Aguer told Reuters. “This is oil piracy.”
He was speaking day after South Sudan said it had shot down a Sudanese MiG-29 aircraft over South Sudan’s oil-producing Unity state.
It is not clear when the pipeline was built but Aguer said the army captured two earth excavators that were being used by a “foreign company” to help extend the pipeline towards Unity state.
Alleged photographs of the pipeline seen by Reuters showed a pipe of around 10-inch diameter lying on the black earth next to a shallow trench.
The two former civil war foes have been locked in a bitter dispute over oil payments and other issues, and clashes in the ill-defined border region last week gave rise to concern they might blow up into a new war.
Landlocked South Sudan – which seceded from Sudan in July –shut down its entire 350,000-barrel-per-day oil production in January as part of the dispute. South Sudan depends on oil for 98% of its revenues.
South Sudan broke away from Sudan after a referendum last year in which the South voted overwhelmingly for partition after almost 50 years of unbroken rebellion against Khartoum.
The division gave South Sudan about three quarters of the country’s oil production, but it must still use pipelines and other facilities running through Sudan to export it, and the two have failed to agree how much it should pay to do this.
South Sudan’s army briefly occupied an undefined portion of Heglig town last week before pulling out.
Heglig oilfield lies in a contested border region currently controlled by the Sudanese Armed Forces and accounts for roughly half of Sudan’s 115,000 bpd of oil output.
South Sudan previously accused Sudan of building another tie-in pipeline to Khartoum’s refineries with a capacity of 120,000 bpd.
