سلفا كير سيطلب من الصين تمويل مشروع خط انابيب النفط البديل

Quote: South Sudan will seek Chinese funds to build an alternative oil pipeline so that it no longer depends on the north to export its oil, a senior official said, ahead of a presidential visit to Beijing. South-Sudan-map Pagan Amum, lead negotiator for South Sudan, told the Financial Times that President Salva Kiir will raise the prospect of Chinese financing days after fighting over an oil field destroyed key infrastructure and threatened to reignite war between Khartoum and Juba. Mr Kiir will meet his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao as part of a five-day visit that starts on Monday in a tour that could be critical to South Sudan’s economic survival. “It could be a consortium and China could join. They are positive, they are looking into it, they have agreed to provide South Sudan with technical assistance in building an alternative pipeline,” said Mr Amum, adding South Sudan is unlikely ever to resume crude exports through Sudan. “Financing would not be a problem because we would be using future sales.” Analysts say both Sudanese and international mediators have long hoped China, which is invested on both sides of the border, might play a more decisive role in negotiations between the former foes, who separated last year following decades of civil war. A failure to determine everything from the border to deals over oil, which was produced in the south and exported through the north until the South halted production in February, has plunged the pair back into conflict. International Crisis Group said in a report this month that China had failed to convince the South to commit to export oil pumped from Chinese-built facilities in the south via Chinese-built infrastructure in the north, in new oil production deals signed with Juba in January. “I don’t think our oil will flow through Sudan any more again,” said Mr Amum. Two months after saying there were “difficulties” with the fledgling China-Juba relationship, Mr Amum told the FT his nation considered its ties with Beijing as “the most strategic relations South Sudan will have with any other country.” Diplomats caution relations with China are still strained, however. The Chinese “were very very hurt,” a foreign diplomat told the FT by Juba’s February expulsion of the head of Chinese-led oil consortium Petrodar over accusations the group helped the north divert southern oil. Chinese diplomats have in any case struggled to grasp the complexity of more than a year of oil talks, which are characterised by incendiary posturing and seemingly suicidal actions: they were aghast when South Sudan shut down its entire 350,000 barrel a day production in February, risking China’s investments and depriving it of supply. Northern infrastructure has also been hit by the fighting. Satellite imagery of oil facilities in Heglig following last week’s southern invasion, suggests damage to key pipeline infrastructure may halt all oil flows. Both economies are in a race against time, as the halt in oil production and transit fees bring their oil-dependent economies to the brink of collapse. South Sudan relies on oil for 98 per cent of its declared revenues and dollars are already drying up in both Khartoum and Juba, risking massive depreciation in both currencies. Juba officials have scrambled to seek loans from Africa, Europe and Asia in the interim. Mr Amum, who was in Johannesburg to see if South Africa might structure a consortium to build a pipeline to Kenya or Djibouti that would also involve Japan, insisted South Sudan can survive. “We are in a situation where we don’t need to be producing the oil now because we can have a future sale of oil – we have the reserves; everybody knows the oil will flow after the construction of the pipeline,” said Mr Amum. Unlike other Juba officials who have claimed a pipeline could be built within seven months, Mr Amum gave a more realistic timeframe, saying it would take between 30 months and four years. International officials caution, however, that commercial rates on loans could bankrupt the country, while mortgaging future oil revenues risks using up all its petrodollars to secure oil exports, instead of financing sorely needed development in roads, health and education in one of the world’s poorest countries.