Sudan has sold at least one cargo of crude seized from South Sudan at millions of dollars discount and is offering more, industry sources said, as Khartoum looks to recover oil revenue from its former civil war foe, according to Reuters.
A bitter row has escalated between the two over the value of the transit fee landlocked South Sudan should pay for oil pumped north by pipeline through its northern neighbor and exported from Port Sudan.
South Sudan is shutting down production in protest after Khartoum blocked exports and seized some of the oil as compensation. South Sudan's President Salva Kiir accused Khartoum of having "looted" revenues amounting to roughly $815 million from crude cargoes.
The seized crude was loaded onto three tankers from January 13-20, South Sudan's justice ministry said. Sudan sold one of those cargoes, a 600,000 barrel shipment loaded on the vessel Ratna Shradha, to a North Asian trader. The final price of the sale was unclear, but one trader said that the cargo was sold at a discount as steep as $14 a barrel. That would indicate an $8.4 million discount for the whole cargo versus the last official price charged by the South.
The tanker is heading to Singapore, another source said.
