Dar Petroleum expects production from its Palouge oilfield in South Sudan, which was offline for more than a year, to reach 180,000 barrels per day within a month.
Oil export from the country, which had reached peaks of more than 350,000 barrels of oil per day, was shut down in January 2012 after tensions escalated with its northern neighbour Sudan.
Landlocked South Sudan reached an agreement with Sudan during talks in Addis Ababa in March to resume pumping of the south’s oil to a Red Sea port in Sudan for export, throwing both economies a lifeline.
The African neighbours came close to war a year ago but pledged in March to end a conflict over oil fees and a disputed border.
“Within a month, we should be reaching 165,000 to 180,000 and we would expect to reach the level where we were before the shutdown by early next year,” said Joseph Podtung, Dar Petroleum President, said during a ceremony to restart production at Palouge, which came a month later than initially predicted.
Partners in the consortium producing Dar Blend at the blocks 3 and 7 in Palouge include China National Petroleum Corp and Malaysia’s Petronas.