Production at South Sudan’s biggest oil field resumed this week, bringing the country’s total crude output to just over one third of what it was in January last year, before the country shut down its oil production following a dispute with Sudan over transit fees.

“This is really a great day for the people of South Sudan,” the country’s Minister of Petroleum, Stephen Dhieu Dau, said after turning on the taps at the Palogue oil field in Upper Nile state on 5 May. “[This is] the official resumption of production [at the] Palogue oil field, and we will be pushing the oil from South Sudan to the pipeline…within two weeks. We are expecting it,” he said. (CONTINUED - 705 WORDS)