South Sudanese Ministry of Petroleum and Mining

=Internal organisation=

As of early June 2012, the incumbent Minister of Petroleum and Mining was Stephen Dhieu Dau and the Deputy Minister was Elizabeth James Bol. The Ministry's official mission is stated as: To formulate necessary legislation and regulation for the management and development of the energy and mining sectors as well as develop and implement GOSS policies and strategies on power generation and distribution.

Within the Ministry, there are five directorates- the Directorate of Administration, the Directorate of Energy, the Directorate of Geological Survey, the Directorate of Minerals Development and the Directorate of Power Planning.

According to reports in November 2011, a South Sudanese official commented that the new country would be marketing its own fuel rather than having a crude oil marketing firm, such as Switzerland's Glencore, to do this on its behalf. Official at the Ministry Macar Aciek Ader said that "nobody will accept giving a national resource of this nature to a private company to go and market it. Nobody will do that. Oil is politics, and it will continue to be politics."

=Foreign technical assistance=

USAID
In April 2012, the Ministry of Petroleum and Mining in partnership with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) held a workshop on Pipeline development at Home and Away Business Centre in Juba.

World Bank
According to the Extractive Industries source book, a World Bank funded project, a World Bank administered grant in the amount of 3.3 million USD has been prepared by the World Bank working closely with the South Sudanese Government and other key donors such as Norway to address South Sudan’s urgent petroleum sector priorities.

Norwegian aid
Through the Norwegian programme, Oil for Development, the Government of South Sudan has received various technical assistance, including an audit of wealth sharing in the oil sector and a functional analysis of the previous Ministry of Mines in South Sudan.

Also, according to the Sudan profile on the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad) website, Norway and other donors will deploy experts and advisors in the finance and oil ministries in Juba. They will conduct training and transfer of knowledge, as well as assisting in establishing an administration and best practices for financial management.

=Disputes with Sudan= South Sudan's Minister for Petroleum and Mining, Stephen Dhieu Dau, has accused the Khartoum government of taking the country’s crude oil, despite Khartoum's refusal to accept a payment from South Sudan of US $2.6 million to help it recover from the economic shock that resulted from South Sudan’s secession in July of 2011.

Reports that Khartoum had been diverting Juba’s crude en route to Port Sudan for export provoked South Sudan to suspend its production of 350,000 barrels of oil per day (bpd) on 20 January 2012. According to the Horn Business Journal, the order to shut down oil production came from South Sudan's President Salva Kiir, who directed Minister Dhieu Dau to execute it with immediate effect.

=References=