Sudan was not asked to join the recently-agreed oil production cut of 1.2 million barrels per day by OPEC-non-OPEC countries and will start working next year on increasing output from 75,000 barrels per day to over 120,000 barrels per day, Sudanese Petroleum Minister Azhari Abdalla told Sputnik on Wednesday in an interview.
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 12th December, 2018) Sudan was not asked to join the recently-agreed oil production cut of 1.2 million barrels per day by OPEC-non-OPEC countries and will start working next year on increasing output from 75,000 barrels per day to over 120,000 barrels per day, Sudanese Petroleum Minister Azhari Abdalla told Sputnik on Wednesday in an interview.
On Friday, participants of the OPEC-non-OPEC oil output cut deal, including Sudan, agreed to reduce overall production by 1.2 million barrels per day for six months starting January.
"We have not been requested to adjust [our oil production]. The ceiling for Sudan's oil production [under the OPEC-non-OPEC deal]� is 126,000 barrels per day. Now we produce 75,000 barrels per day and we haven't reached the ceiling yet. There is no problem for us. All we produce we consume internally and do not export," Abdalla said, asked how Sudanese oil production levels would change next year in line with the new agreement.�
The minister added that Sudan would start to implement its plan to increase oil production to about 120,000 barrels per day next year.
"We will not achieve this next year, but we will work towards that goal starting next year, not necessarily to achieve it within the same year. We will comply because we are signatories to that [OPEC-non-OPEC] Declaration of Cooperation agreement. We will comply to whatever OPEC requests from us," Abdalla said.
Overall, it may take the country up to four years to recover its oil production that was heavily hit by sanctions that the United States has previously introduced. The sanctions are expected to be completely lifted in July.
"For the next three or four years we will still be working to satisfy our internal requirements for petroleum products. In essence, it is not really going to impact, one way or the other, international oil prices. However, we will cooperate and comply as we declared with OPEC on any requirements. It will not really affect out targets and I'm sure it will not impact the objectives of OPEC for controlling oil prices," the Sudanese minister said.
Under the new deal, OPEC members pledged to cut oil production by 2.5 percent corresponding to 0.8 million barrels per day, while 10 non-OPEC countries agreed to decrease output by 2 percent or 0.4 million barrels per day from October 2018 levels. Moreover, Iran, Venezuela, and Libya received exemptions from the deal due to sanctions and inner turmoil which involuntarily disrupted production levels.
