The national finance minister said the projected pipeline to connect South Sudan’s oil fields with the still to be built Kenyan port of Lamu costs three billion US Dollars.
Kosti Manibe told a news conference in Nairobi that South Sudan does not have the money to pay for the 2.000-kilometer long pipeline but the country’s oil reserves are a good guarantee for financiers.Works on the pipeline should start in June 2013 and may take two years to conclude.
The pipeline would be able to transport up to one million barrels of crude per day.
In January, before the oil shutdown, South Sudan was producing 350 thousand barrels per day.
South Sudan has in its subsoil a reserve of at least seven billion barrels of crude.
The Lamu pipeline should be ready when the current oil deal being negotiated between Juba and Khartoum expires within three and half years.