Chinese companies are ready to return to Sudan at a moment’s notice, according to a Chinese official, once security and stability are restored in the northeast African nation engulfed in a civil war.
Multibillion-dollar Chinese oil and gas projects have been stalled or destroyed since the fighting began in April last year. Chinese-built and funded operations have been grounded, with more than 1,300 Chinese citizens evacuated since then.
Zheng Xiang, the charge d’affaires of the Chinese embassy in Sudan, recently told state-owned Sudan News Agency that Chinese companies were keen to resume operations to help in the country’s reconstruction, while discussions with lenders were on to resolve its debt problems.
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“We hope that security and stability will prevail in the near future to resume work as soon as possible,” Zheng said in the interview released this week.
The promise comes on the back of a meeting between Sudan’s de facto leader Abdel-Fattah Al-Burhan and Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) summit in Beijing in September.
Agreements made during that meeting set the wheels in motion.
“We have communicated with the Sudanese side. We are working together to implement the outcomes of the summit on the ground step by step,” Zheng said.
The issue of Sudan’s debt to China was also discussed in November when a high-level Sudanese delegation visited Beijing.
“We believe that the issue of debts will not be an obstacle to economic and trade cooperation between China and Sudan,” Zheng said.
According to Boston University’s Global Development Policy Centre, Chinese lenders advanced 66 loans to Sudan worth US$6.3 billion between 2000 and 2018, but repayments stalled when the country descended into civil war last year.
That was when fighting broke out between two rival factions – the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) – for control of the country. So far, at least 24,000 people have been killed, according to Armed Conflict Location and Event Data, a group monitoring the conflict since it started.
Sudanese displaced by the civil war arrive at Gedaref city near the Ethiopian border last month. Photo: AFP alt=Sudanese displaced by the civil war arrive at Gedaref city near the Ethiopian border last month. Photo: AFP>
At the time, China had been in discussions over funding key oil and gas projects in Sudan, including an oil refinery and a mega slaughterhouse.
The two countries have a long history of cooperation in oil and gas, dating back to a 1990s deal to develop oilfields through the state-owned China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC). Sudan supplied about 5 per cent of China’s imported oil at the time. But production has fallen considerably since 2011, when the oil-rich south broke away to become the independent nation of South Sudan.
At FOCAC, Al-Burhan also met CNPC CEO Dai Houliang and “held discussions on the process of cooperation between China and Sudan in the fields of oil and gas“, according to Zheng.
He said CNPC showed great interest in working with the Sudanese side to continue the partnership, adding that the idea of building an oil refinery in Sudan had been raised at a meeting between Chinese and Sudanese officials.
“We remain in communication and discussion with the Sudanese side about this vital issue,” Zheng said.
During a recent trip to China, Sudan’s energy and oil minister Dr Mohi-Eddin Naeem Mohamed Saeed called on Beijing to expand investment in upstream and downstream operations. In a speech at the Oil and Gas Equipment Conference and Exhibition in the city of Xian, he stressed the need to work with Chinese companies to rehabilitate infrastructure in the petroleum sector that had been destroyed by war.
Earlier, in August, the minister said Sudan was negotiating with Chinese companies to rehabilitate the Khartoum refinery, inspect and repair pipelines, and resume oil exploration. The refinery was built by CNPC and has been operational since 2000. It previously had a daily production capacity of 100,000 barrels.
Talks are also being held over the building of a large slaughterhouse in Sudan’s capital Khartoum, Zheng said. In 2020, China agreed to provide US$63 million to fund the construction. However the Covid-19 pandemic, the 2021 military coup and the civil war have delayed it.
Zheng reaffirmed China’s interest in the project, though. He said discussions were being held over the details of the slaughterhouse.
He also talked about the Al-Geneina-Adri railway that would see a train line run from Port Sudan to the middle and west of the African continent, saying it was a “huge and important project”.
An in-depth economic study had been undertaken and the two countries had agreed to implement the project in stages, according to Zheng.
“This year, we met with the minister of transport and also discussed the issue and the eastern path of this vital project,” he said.
Zheng said Khartoum had various proposals, including starting the railway from eastern Sudan and extending it through the regions of Kordofan and Darfur and then on to West Africa.
The second option is to start from eastern Sudan and extend to Wadi Halfa in the far north of the country.
Zheng said consultations will continue with the Sudanese side “to determine the priorities of this project and then determine the implementation … in different stages”.
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