South Sudan’s Minister of Petroleum and Mining Stephen Dhieu Dau said his government has completed all the necessary checks to the oil infrastructure in the south, and has deemed the facilities ready to once again begin producing oil by year-end.

“The foreign oil companies and pipeline operators operating in [South Sudan] are hereby ordered to resume any and all petroleum operations within the territory that may have been halted as a result of the government’s prior shutdown instruction,” the minister was quoted as saying by France’s AFP. (CONTINUED - 937 WORDS)