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South Sudan to Rule on White Nile Exploration Rights
Sudan News 4/19/2006

The government of South Sudan will rule this month on what rights White Nile, the Aim-listed exploration company, has to a vast swathe of South Sudan contested by French oil giant Total.

South Sudanese industry minister General Albino Akol Akol told The Business from Juba: "It's going to be decided by the government of South Sudan within this month."

He said a committee had been set up to take the decision, which would then go before the South Sudan Cabinet, before going for approval to the National Petroleum Commission set up as part of peace deal with the Khartoum government.

White Nile is unlikely to keep all of Block Ba, which it gained in a deal signed with John Garang, the late leader of the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA).

South Sudanese President Salva Kiir Meyardit last month held two meetings with French oil giant Total, which signed a deal for the same block with Khartoum in 1985.

Jon Bearman, of African oil consultancy Clearwater, who is working with Akol, said in a report that Kiir did not regard White Nile's deal as having official status. However, Bearman said Kiir was nevertheless seeking a compromise with White Nile's backers in the government, Prime Minister Riek Machar and Costello Garang, who head powerful tribal factions.

Akol confirmed: "We are considering an amicable solution. We will look at the deal of White Nile and the deal of Total."

Bearman says one option being considered is for South Sudan to buy out White Nile; the other is to divide the block, which Total refuses to accept. The government of South Sudan this month received its first oil revenues, but it will struggle to match White Nile's £330m ($578m, E478m) market value.

White Nile chairman Phil Edmonds, a former England bowler, told The Business that a general assembly of the government of South Sudan had last Monday reiterated its 100 percent support for the company and its deal, which had been formally signed by the government of South Sudan.