South Sudan oil production has dropped by 15,000 barrels per day (bpd) due to the impact of COVID-19 pandemic and slowdown of the economy – a senior official has said.
The drop from 185,000 bpd to 170,000 bpd is a downward curve against South Sudan oil production expectation of an increase targeting 200,000 bpd this year.
Awow Daniel Chuang, undersecretary in the ministry of petroleum, linked the drop to the global economic slowdown resulting from COVID-19 pandemic that has seen oil prices fall.
Chung lamented that COVID-19 and subsequent slowdown of the economy have instigated problems to South Sudan as the country depends heavily on oil. “The drop in oil production and global oil price is a significant loss to the government,” he told journalists in Juba.
Chung also disclosed that the oil production has costed the government enough oil revenue losses.
Decrying the situation, he stated that the pandemic has greatly disrupted transportation of logistics and consignment to the northern oil fields in Upper Nile and Unity states respectively, hence affecting production.
READ: East African Oil Pipeline talks in the offing
South Sudan has in the past few months experienced fighting that has left investors in great losses.
Chung imparted that oil production in Upper Nile and Unity state dropped by 10,000 bpd each, from 130,000 bpd to 120,000 bpd and 60,000 to 50,000 bpd respectively.
South Sudan oil production was 350,000 bpd before the civil war broke out in 2013. The war resulted to the destruction of most of the oilfields with only Upper Nile states near the border with Sudan remain under production.
Since 2018, South Sudan has been trying to regain its glamorous days by attempting to reopen the destroyed oil fields in the hope of returning to pre-war levels of production.
In sub-Saharan Africa, South Sudan has the third-largest oil reserves, estimated at 3.5 billion barrels, yet vastly under-explored with just about 30 percent of the country explored to date.
