Sudan has invited Sri Lanka to invest in its oil exploration as the country is expressing its willingness to supply crude oil at affordable prices.

According to the New Delhi-based Sudanese Ambassador to Sri Lanka, Hassan E. El-Talib, Sudan continues to discover new oil deposits in the country as Chinese and Malaysian engineers are at present exploring and finding new deposits by using latest satellite technology.“We continue to discover deposits in our areas and Khartoum now has more oil. In fact, we have discovered that Sudan is on top of a huge lake of petroleum and now realize only Saudi Arabia has bigger deposits than us in world crude. If the government of Sri Lanka or any Lankan companies want to purchase Sudanese petrol of purity, we are ready to supply at very competitive prices,” he said during a meeting with his Sri Lanka counterpart.

El-Talib added that the country is ready to assist, if Sri Lanka can invest in Sudan’s oil exploration, buy oil exploration blocks and extract oil, and directly export from Sudan as Chinese, Malaysian and India based companies are currently in Sudan exploring, producing and exporting their own oil and sending them directly to their countries.“If Sri Lanka wants to create its own petroleum, you can come to Sudan, get the oil block from us for which we can help, pump it out and bring the entire amount directly to Sri Lanka -will help you to do that at highly competitive rates if possible. When oil prices return to normal range by the end of this year, Sudan will become a net oil exporter,” he said.

The Petroleum Ministry has said that no less than three companies continue to prospect oil in six Sudanese fields while over 25 other companies are in distribution. Some of these firms are privately owned, others are government owned while some are Joint Ventures between the government and the private sector.

Sudan produces over 120,000 bpd, making over $2 billion in yearly exports and over one billion crude barrel deposits have been discovered in Sudan.The Department of Commerce has revealed that Sri Lanka's overall trade with Sudan in 2015 was at $2.2 million with exports at $ 1.6 million, ColomboPage news reports.

Anita Fatunji