Sudan and Ethiopia have agreed to build a joint pipeline that will connect the two countries. The partnership was agreed on last week when the Minister of Energy and Mining from Sudan Adel Muhammed Ibrahim and Ethiopian counterpart Seleshi Bekele met in Ethiopia.
The proposed partnership was also extended to their Southern neighbour South Sudan.
Sudan, which is Africa’s 3rd largest oil producer, behind only Nigeria and Angola currently produces 175,000 barrels per day. This is only about half the capacity she was producing before the civil war, when it was producing 350,000 barrels per day.
Ethiopia will benefit from the pipeline by buying crude oil from its local neighbours rather than the Middle East and the Gulf States.
According to data from the Nile Petroleum Company, 80% of oil imports to Ethiopia are from Sudan, which saves Ethiopia millions of dollars worth of oil imports.
Furthermore, Ethiopia will benefit from the exchange of Information from Sudan as they also agreed to set up a training centre.
In 2018, Ethiopia started the exploration of crude oil at the Ogaden Basin. The Ogaden Basin is projected to hold close to 2.7 Billion barrels of crude oil and will contribute $1.5 billion a year to the Ethiopian economy.
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