South Sudan restores crude oil production and export via Sudan as force majeure is lifted

The South Sudanese government and key oil companies have jointly announced the resumption of oil production and export at its Blocks 3 and 7 in the Upper Nile State with an initial output target of 90,000 barrels of crude oil per day.
In a joint statement Tuesday (7 January), they said that normal operations have started after the Sudanese government had lifted a nearly year-long force majeure on the transport of crude oil from its neighbor South Sudan to a port on the Red Sea because of the ongoing conflict in Sudan. Khartoum evoked the force majeure clause, which protected it from liability following the outbreak of violent clashes in early 2023. South Sudan, whose gross domestic product (GDP) depends in large part — or a whooping 90% — on the extraction of its rich fossil reserves, was unable to sell its oil to international markets for the last 11 months.
“This is basically to say our ‘D-Day’ that we have been waiting for is tomorrow, 8 January 2025,” Puot Kang Chol, petroleum minister in the government in Juba said. He also insisted his country will continue to pump more oil to global markets even as the efforts to replace fossil fuels with green energy gain momentum. “We will continue to produce. … South Sudan, and not only South Sudan, the continent called Africa, will continue to use oil resources for its own survival,” Chol noted. South Sudan, which is ranked 3rd in sub-Saharan Africa for oil reserves, is estimated to produce about 3.5 billion barrels annually.