Many countries including US, China and big powers sent congratulations to the "Two Sudans" for reaching the oil agreement. On third of August, African Union chief mediator, Thabo Mbeki, announced a deal on oil transportation fees. In line with this agreement Juba will pay 11 dollars for the oil of unity state and 9.10 dollars for the oil of Upper Nile. According to the agreement South Sudan will pay also nearly three billion dollar as compensation to Khartoum, the payment which is considered by Juba as a transitional financial assistance. This deal will conclude within three and a half years.
Although all people are happy and expecting that the two countries will implement the agreement, it seems that the Government of South Sudan is still not convinced and appeared very reluctant toward this agreement.
Riek Machar, the Vice President of South Sudan is trying to give new numbers claiming that the agreement has forced South Sudan to become "the biggest donor on earth to a single country, Sudan. He further analyzed that the figure is not 9-11 dollars or 25.8 dollars; he said the rate has reached 40 dollars per barrel if the whole amount lost were translated. He criticized the oil agreement and complained saying that South Sudan will continue to lose 17% of its total oil revenues every year for the next three and a half years. He attributed the acceptance of the Government of South Sudan to oil deal to "international pressures" exerted by the international community, then he said "this agreement has unfortunately left a huge gap of oil revenues lost to Khartoum". Dear readers, notice the language: "Unfortunately…. Lost to Khartoum"
Also, in a meeting with the Ambassador of Netherlands in Juba, Machar complained that South Sudan will lose a total of 12 billion dollars to Khartoum per the deal.
In the same context of reluctance and trying to escape from the oil deal South Sudan's Deputy Finance Minister Marial Awuou said that South Sudan will survive without oil exports because it has boosted tax revenues, stashed away currency reserves worth around 300 million dollars, and may use its oil reserves to borrow, a government official said on Friday. I wrote before two days an article with title "South Sudan: Very Strange Comments on the Oil Agreement". It was about Pagan Amum statements because he was trying to give media a green light to a new campaign against oil deal, he blamed the international community saying: "It is true that the Government of South Sudan and the negotiating team, including myself personally as a chief negotiator were subjected to extreme pressure from the Americans, British, the Norwegians and others. They were forcing us to give away the resources of South Sudan".