South Sudan on Tuesday played down a northern threat to shut down oil pipelines, saying the two sides will need to cooperate to keep their economies going after the south secedes in less than two weeks.
About three-quarters of the country’s roughly 500,000 barrels per day of oil output comes from the south, but most of its refineries, pipelines and ports are in the north.
Oil is the lifeblood of both economies. The current arrangement, which splits revenues from southern oil about 50-50, expires when the south declares independence on July 9.
Sudan’s President Omar Hassan al-Bashir threatened last week to shut down oil pipelines if the south refuses to pay transit fees or continue the current arrangement after it secedes.
“We completely regret and are surprised by the decision of the president of the Republic of Sudan that he can close off the pipes that carry the oil from southern Sudan,” the south’s Information Minister Barnaba Mariel Benjamin told reporters.
“This is also the oil that also supports 70 percent of the economy in the north. So we are obliged by the mutual cooperation that we need that oil to flow, so that Sudan can benefit, and the people in south Sudan, who are the owners, also benefit.”
Southerners chose to separate from the north in a January referendum, the climax of a 2005 peace deal that ended decades of civil war in Sudan, which killed some 2 million people and destabilised much of the region.
After a peaceful referendum and the north’s endorsement of the result, the slow division of Africa’s largest country has turned tense in its final stages, including a military standoff in parts of the ill-defined border region.
Benjamin condemned an attack on a train carrying southern civilians in the conflict-stricken Southern Kordofan border state on Sunday. The United Nations said the attack was carried out by northern Misseriya tribesmen, who denied it.
Benjamin said one person was killed in the attack and seven were wounded.
The two sides have yet to agree on a number of contentious issues, including how to divide the country’s roughly $38 billion of debt.
