KHARTOUM: Sudan has managed to boost oil production to almost 140,000 barrels per day and plans to add another 10,000b/d next year, its oil minister said yesterday after the African country launched a new oilfield.
Sudan has been stepping up oil and gas exploration after losing three-quarters of its former output, or 350,000b/d, when South Sudan seceded last year. The loss of oil revenue, the main source of state income and the hard currency needed to fund imports, has thrown the economy into turmoil.
“Our current production is between 136,000 and 140,000,” Awad Al Jaz told reporters, adding that new discoveries had been made. Sudan last put its output in October at 120,000 bpd.
Chinese-owned Petro Energy E&P recently launched production at the Hadida oilfield in western Sudan with a daily output of 10,000b/d.
For next year, Sudan plans to reach 150,000b/d, Jaz said. “This is our budget (plan),” he said.
Initially Sudan had planned 180,000 bpd by the end of this year but missed the target after fighting with South Sudan in April damaged the key Heglig oilfield and its central processing plant on the Sudan side of their disputed border.
Bolivia nationalises Spanish-owned electrical utilities
LA PAZ: Bolivia yesterday nationalised electrical utilities owned by Spanish company Iberdrola, sending in police and troops to enforce another expropriation ordered by the populist leader of South America’s poorest nation.
President Evo Morales announced a decree targeting Iberdrola-owned utilities in the cities of La Paz and Oruro. They are called Electropaz and Elfeo, respectively.
In La Paz, soldiers later took control of power plants that until now were run by Iberdrola, while police seized corporate offices.
It was the latest in a series of such seizures by the outspoken leftist who is a key member of a group of populist South American presidents led by the now-ailing Hugo Chavez of Venezuela
Back in May, Morales nationalized a subsidiary of another Spanish power group, Red Electrica Corporacion, which distributed electricity.
Since coming to power in January 2006 Bolivia’s first president representing the country’s indigenous majority has nationalized the country’s oil wealth and smelters, in addition to electric power companies.
This time, Morales said he was acting because Iberdrola charged more for electricity in rural areas than it did in cities, and service was also uneven. “We are forced to take this measure so that utility rates will be uniform” and service will be of the same quality in the country as in urban areas, the president said at a ceremony at the presidential palace.
Agencies
