KHARTOUM, Sept. 20 (Xinhua) -- Sudan on Wednesday said it was ready to provide technical assistance for South Sudan to reoperate its oil fields that were halted due to the armed conflict in the new-born state.
Sudan's Minister of Oil and Gas Abdul-Rahman Osman made the remarks during meeting with his South Sudanese counterpart Ezekiel Lol Gatkuoth.
"Sudan is ready to provide technical assistance to help South Sudan reoperate Unity and Sarjas oil fields through sending technical and laboratory equipment to those fields together with provision of training at the oil training center," said Osman in a statement.
He reiterated his ministry's readiness to help increase South Sudan's oil production.
"Increasing the oil production will serve the interests of both sides," Osman said, adding that it could increase the quantities of transit crude oil to export through the Sudanese ports.
South Sudan's Oil Minister Ezekiel Lol Gatkuoth, for his part, said that "increasing the production of the current operating oil fields and reoperating the halted ones is important for both countries."
Before its separation with Sudan in 2011, South Sudan's oil production reached 245,000 barrels a day. But by late 2014, it dropped to about 160,000 barrels a day due to the ongoing civil war which broke out in the new-born state.
South Sudan has been witnessing violent armed clashes between the government army and defectors loyal to former vice-president Riek Machar since December 2013.
