South Sudan Rebels Seem to Support Khartoum Interests

Khartoum may be creating a crisis in South Sudan to justify a future invasion to secure South Sudan's oil.

-Shimrom Issachar



April 22, 2011 (JUBA) – Northern Sudanese employees working at the oilfields of South Sudan’s Unity state have begun evacuating as fighting between the South Sudan army (SPLA) as rebel forces under the command of the renegade Peter Gatdet Yak, have intensified for the last four days in the state.

The rebel forces of Gatdet, known as the South Sudan Liberation Army (SSLA), launched a series of heavy attacks this week since April 19, against the SPLA forces of Division Four in Mayom County in the state, resulting to the South Sudan army losing at least one town to the rebel group.

The minister of information in Unity state, Gideon Gatpan Thoar, told Sudan Tribune on Friday from the state capital, Bentiu, that the northern oil company employees were evacuated to Higlig area near the North-South border where the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) have deployed.

He said the workers could return to their stations any time, explaining that the decision was based on ensuring their safety in response to anger expressed by the state citizens against northerners whom they accuse of supporting renegade Peter Gatdet.

On Thursday in Khartoum, the undersecretary of the Ministry of Petroleum, Omer Mohamed Khair, confirmed the evacuation saying the 150 oil workers from north Sudan are to resume their work in the Unity state within 24 hours after the end of fighting.

Chinese diplomats in Juba have expressed concern to the Southern Sudanese authorities about the insecurity caused by the fighting and its implications in the oilfields operated by the China National Petroleum Company (CNPC). The Chinese Consul General in Juba this week said more than 200 northern Sudanese drillers and other staff have been asked to evacuate the area for safety reasons by the Unity state government
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Bol Gatkuoth, former member of the Southern Sudan Legislative Assembly and the current spokesperson of Gatdets’s rebel group, claimed that the SSLA captured Guong on 19 April, and captured Mankien on 21 April, after two separate clashes with the SPLA forces in the state.

Officials of Unity state, including the commissioner of Mayom county, reportedly confirmed the capture of the two towns by the rebel group.

However, SPLA spokesman Colonel Philip Aguer, denied the claim that the second town, Mankien, fell to the rebels. No casualties were reported by both sides.

• The rebels claim to seek control of strategic locations in the state to establish a base in the renegade General’s home county, Mayom, from which to command his rebellion against Juba.


• South Sudan officials suspect that the militia group wants to create a corridor supply route and weapons and ammunitions from Khartoum to their base in Mayom from which to expand their targets into other areas in the region.


• The rebel force of Peter Gatdet is one among the seven other different rebel groups fighting against the government. They are based in Jonglei, Upper Nile, Unity and Northern Bahr el Ghazal states.


• They claim to be fighting for democracy and justice and against tribalism and corruption.


• Most groups began their rebellion due to grievances caused by elections last year but others who were not part of the SPLA in the past like the SSLA accused the South Sudan government of corruption and tribalism.


• The South Sudan government rejects the accusations and claim that Gatdet is being backed by Khartoum.

The United Nations Security Council briefing on Thursday on the situation in Sudan raised concern about the increasing violence in South Sudan ahead of formal independence on July 9.

In January the South voted to secede in a plebiscite agreed as part of a 2005 peace deal that ended over two decades of conflict.

The 15-member UN body was briefed by the Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Atul Khare, who told the Council that a number of internal grievances which might have contributed to the rebellion needed to be addressed in South Sudan.

The UN official’s presentation further highlighted the need to address "ethnic tensions, mismanagement, political and social marginalization, economic development and governance, especially in rule of law institutions ".

The Rest @ The Sudan Tribune

ONGC’s Indian Owned Oil Company Comes Under Attack for Sudan Deals

Hyderabad: International activists are turning the heat on India’s Oil and Natural Gas Corp. Ltd (ONGC) over its operations in the civil war-ravaged African nation Sudan following similar campaigns against Chinese and Malaysian oil firms.

Amnesty International, Genocide Intervention Network (GIN) and Investors Against Genocide have launched targeted campaigns after GIN’s Sudan Divestment Task Force report identified ONGC as among the top four “highest offenders” indirectly contributing to the ongoing conflict in Sudan. While estimates vary, the conflict, which started in 2003, is believed to have killed nearly 300,000 people and displaced at least two million Sudanese from their homes.

ONGC has invested nearly $1 billion (Rs4,288 crore) in Sudanese oilfields and is one of the top three players in the oil sector in that country. Activists claim that ONGC is stonewalling efforts by both activists as well as investors to engage the company on its operations in Sudan.

“We have regularly written to and called ONGC but, have not yet been able to secure a meeting or phone call to discuss their operations in Sudan. To our knowledge, investors have not yet been able to effectively engage with ONGC either,” said GIN International coordinator Scott Wisor.

Trade data shows Sudan’s oil exports stood at $4.8 bn in 2006 and may touch $7 bn in 2007
Asked about the human rights issues involved in the company’s Sudan operations, ONGC spokesperson M. Selva Pandian said the company acknowledged the “ethical question” involved and the “big dilemma” that it poses.

“However, we are a 74% state-owned company and a purely commercial entity. It is not really in our hands, we follow the directions given by the Indian government,” the spokesperson added. Joining ONGC on the shortlist in the report, released on 31 May, are China National Petroleum Corp., Malaysia’s Petroliam Nasional Berhad (Petronas) and China Petroleum and Chemical Corp. (Sinopec).

As per International Trade Center (ITC) data, Sudan’s oil export, which constitutes nearly 90% of total exports, stood at $4.8 billion in 2006 and are expected to touch $7 billion in 2007.

Amnesty claims that close to 70% of this oil revenue is used by the Sudanese government for military expenditure. The campaign by the human rights activists is channelled through mutual fund houses and institutional investors who will have a better chance of influencing companies they have invested in.

“Ultimately, the goal is to get big oil companies, like Petronas or ONGC, to engage the Sudanese government to end the violence in Sudan,” wrote Amy O’Meara, Amnesty International USA human rights and business director, in an email response to Mint’s questions. “We are talking to major investors in the US who have holdings in ONGC as well as the other major oil companies operating in Sudan, in the hopes that they will raise these concerns with the company.”

• Violent conflict started in Sudan in February 2003. A month later, ONGC started operating in Sudan through the wholly owned subsidiary ONGC Videsh Ltd (OVL)
• by acquiring a 25% stake in Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Co. from Canada’s Talisman Inc. for $720 million, as per the data available on the company website.
• Expanding its operations in May 2004, OVL acquired a 24.125% stake in Block 5A and a 23.5% stake in Block 5B operated by the White Nile Petroleum Operating Co. Ltd from Austria’s OMV Aktiengesellschaft for $134 million.
  
• According to shareholding data available with the Bombay Stock Exchange, as on 31 March, foreign institutional investors, or FIIs, held nearly 8% stake in ONGC.
• At current market price, the entire FII holding is valued at around $560 million. American Funds is the single largest FII investor in ONGC, holding 46,016,142 shares or a 2.14% stake.
• Campaigners have made headway with some large fund houses such as American Funds (handles $900 billion globally), Fidelity International Ltd ($279 billion), Berkshire Hathaway and T Rowe Price ($376 billion). Berkshire, Fidelity and T Rowe Price have reduced their holdings in Chinese oil companies linked to Sudan since the Sudan Divestment Campaign started two years ago.

“We are not trying to get anybody to sell their stake in ONGC, and we are not demanding that they stop operating in Sudan. Rather, we want the company to understand the impact that oil revenues are having in Sudan, how they are being used by the Sudanese government to fund military campaigns in Darfur,” O’Meara said. In an effort to maintain sustained pressure on ONGC at its home front, Amnesty International and GIN are looking to partner with Indian organizations who can lead the campaign in India. Wisor who travelled to India last month as part of this effort, says that there is a severe lack of awareness in India about ONGC’s operations in Sudan and the firm’s potential to make a difference in the civil war-ravaged African nation.

Indeed, even R.K. Pachauri —a member of the ONGC board of directors and chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize—told Mint in a telephone interview that he was not aware of the issue. He declined additional comment on the issue saying that any comment he made would be “uninformed”. “

The Rest @ livemint (Wall Street Journal)

RIA Novosti Announces Russia is Trying to Return to Africa

I found this quaint commentary-propaganda piece by RIA Novosti commentator Dina Lyakhovich, dated the 8th of October, 2007. There are others like it out there too. All by the same commentator and agency, trying to convince African countries that AFRICOM is a bad idea (who knows what US intent is) but what I find most interesting is a comment late in the text, and I quote.....

.... "In fact, what the United States wants in Africa is oil, which will soon account for 25% of American oil imports. It needs to protect and guarantee future deliveries, because competition is growing in Africa at breakneck speed. Apart from traditional rivals - France and Britain - it may have to compete with Russia, which is trying to return to Africa."[emphasis added by Shimron]...........

RIA Novositi, the international propaganda news of Putin-controlled Russia, may have made an announcement here.

Look into

Gazprom - is the world's biggest gas exploration and production company Contact: , Phone: (+709) 57 19 30 01, Fax: (+709) 57 19 83 33Moscow, RUSSIA, Europe(North)www.gazprom.ru
Gazflot - russian exploration and ship owning company
Gazprombank - services to enterprises and employees of other sectors (chemical, engineering, defence, nuclear etc.)
Geobyte ltd - geological exploring of resources of potential regions of oil and gas resources and condensate
Lukoil - is Russia's leading oil company
MNP Group incorporates - engaged in shipbuilding, offshore units design and construction.
Morneftegazproekt - provide integrated development of project documentation for offshore field development
Murmansk Shipping Company - crude oil transshipment and icebreaking services in Russian frozen ports and along the Northern Sea Route in Arctic waters
Polar Marine Geosurvey Expedition - complex geological and geophysical research in Arctic, the world ocean and Antarctica, in inland reservoirs
Rosneft - russian oil and gas exploration company
Sakhalin Energy - commercially develop, operate and market the hydrocarbon resources
Sea Soft Packages and Tehcnologies Ltd - developing software for realtime video integration with heterogeneous digital data
Sevmorgeo - Marine geological, geophysical and geoecological research of Russian offshore and the world ocean
an
Russian oil expansion activities in Africa have exanded significantly last few years, showing that this announced policy is well under way. But make no mistake, it is Putin himself, not private companies that are directing the activites of these companies. The state has taken over enormous private companies, like Gazprom (oil) and Alrosa (diamonds) and wields them as Arms of Russian government policy. Russia is not alone. In fact China has done he same thing with its largest oil companies, like the Chinese National offshore Oil Company
and Chinese National Petroleum Corporation, but that is a story for another day.

Africa, understand this: when you read any propaganda - US, Russian, Chinese, or Arab states, understand it for what it is, and make the best decisions for all your people.....and make it together, or we will be divided...as we have in the past, by our own choices.

-Shimron Issachar

Lukoil and China National Petroleum Corp to Join in Developing 3rd World Oil Reserves

BEIJING (XFN-ASIA) - China National Petroleum Corp, the parent of PetroChina Co Ltd (HK 0857), has signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Russia's biggest private oil company Lukoil with an emphasis on exploration and production, the two companies said.

Under the agreement, which was signed on Sept 8, the two companies plan to expand their co-operation in existing projects as well as work together on exploration, development and refining projects in third countries.

The two companies each hold a 20 pct stake in an international consortium carrying out geological exploration in Uzbekistan's part of the Aral Sea.

The Rest @ AFX News & ABC Money.uk

Investers Urged to Pull Out of PetroChina, Which funds Darfur Atrocities

Mutual-fund companies pressed to divest stakes in PetroChina / Activists target more US firms on Sudan investments

Two stories from over the past few days that are related to, most recently, yesterday's from the "Financial Times":
From Bloomberg...
Fidelity Investments, Vanguard Group, and American Funds, the three largest U.S. mutual-fund companies, on Wednesday came under increased pressure from activists to sell their holdings in PetroChina, the oil company that does business in war-ridden Sudan.

The Rest @ Sudan, The Passion and The Present

China Expands its Oil Reseves in Africa

China CNPC strikes oil of commercial value in Chad

BEIJING, July 30 (Reuters) - China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC) has struck oil of commercial value for the first time in Chad, after buying a 50 percent share of an oil exploration partnership in the landlocked African nation last year.

CNPC, China's top oil and gas producer, did not provide any estimates of oil in place or an even more useful gauge such as recoverable reserves in a news release posted on its Web site (www.cnpc.com.cn) on Monday.

China restored diplomatic relations with Chad in August last year after the latter ended its relations with self-ruled Taiwan, regarded by Beijing a renegade province.

Exploration in block 438B, in the northern part of the Sahara desert, in Algeria had also witnessed an important breakthrough, said CNPC.

The company hoped to form an oil production capacity of more than 1 million tonnes a year before 2010 in Algeria, it said.

CNPC said its overseas exploration proceeded satisfactorily in the first half of this year in other countries as well such as Kazakhstan, where three new appraisal wells had found high volume of oil flows.

An appraisal well in block IOR4 in Myanmar also gushed a high volume of gas while exploration wells in block 6 in Sudan got a high output, it said, without providing any figures.

CNPC, the parent of PetroChina has been active to tap overseas upstream markets in recent years as growth in its domestic crude oil production fails to catch up with soaring demand.

In 2006, crude output at CNPC's overseas operations increased 40.1 percent on year to 28.07 million tonnes, or around a quarter of its domestic production which nudged up only 0.7 percent from a year earlier.
The Rest @ Reuters