Saudi Arabia will supply Sudan with millions of tonnes of oil for the next five years to help it tackle a growing energy crisis, the African country's oil minister said Monday. Sudan has been hit with an acute fuel crisis for weeks now, sending black market prices surging in Khartoum as residents queued outside fuel stations for hours.
In a bid to resolve the crisis, a Sudanese delegation led by Oil Minister Abdul Rahman Osman visited Riyadh last week. "We returned from Saudi Arabia after negotiations with the Saudi side to supply Sudan with oil for five years," Osman told reporters at the presidential palace in Khartoum. "Sudan will receive 1.8 million tonnes of oil in the first year. After that each year the quantity will be raised by seven percent." The financing of the deal is to be facilitated by Saudi Development Bank, Osman added without giving financial details of the agreement or when the first oil delivery was expected.