S.Sudan calls north transit fee "daylight robbery"

S.Sudan calls north transit fee “daylight robbery”

South Sudan said demands by the north to impose a transit fee of $22.80 a barrel amounted to "broad daylight robbery".

July 26, 2011 10:01 by Reuters

South Sudan said demands by the north to impose a transit fee of $22.80 a barrel amounted to “broad daylight robbery”.

“The government of Sudan has declared and is engaged in economic war on the newborn Republic of South Sudan,” Pagan Amum, secretary general of the ruling southern Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), told reporters on Monday.

He said Khartoum demanded the transit fee for the use of a northern pipeline to export the southern oil. Around 75 percent of Sudan’s oil production of 500,000 barrels a day comes from the south, which became independent on July 9. Only the north has a pipeline and a port to export the oil.

There was no immediate reaction from Khartoum. (Reporting by Jeremy Clarke, writing by Ulf Laessing, editing by Jane Baird)