Fire persists at Sudan's largest oil refinery following army's recapture

The Khartoum Oil Refinery is still engulfed in flames and smoke on Monday, three days after the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) regained control of the strategic complex. Husham Mohamed Babikir, acting director of the refinery, said crude oil storage tanks were set ablaze before the SAF retook control of the refinery. Babikir told a Xinhua correspondent who visited the refinery as part of a media team that the fire, still ripping through the complex, caused some tanks to explode and the leaking of crude oil. We are determined to repair the damage as quickly as possible, and we are confident in our ability to accomplish that, said the acting director. The refinery, located north of Khartoum, began production in May 2000. Previous statistics by Sudan's Ministry of Oil showed it has a production capacity of about 100,000 barrels per day, covering approximately 45 percent of the country's needs. It is connected to a 1,610-km oil export pipeline in Bashayer Port on the Red Sea coast in eastern Sudan. The Oil Ministry estimated that the refinery's shutdown could cause Sudan a daily loss of about 5 million U.S. dollars. Hassan Hussein Hassan, technical director at the refinery, expressed optimism about controlling the damage. He noted that the fire was estimated to be confined to the crude oil storage tanks, and the production units were not affected. It is true that there are units we have not been able to access yet, but we hope to control the fire first, and then we will assess the damage to other units if there is any, he noted. Meanwhile, the SAF units continued combing operations in the buildings and areas around the refinery. The sprawling complex had been a site of intense clashes between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), who fortified themselves at the refinery and its surrounding buildings for more than 21 months. Brigadier General Jaafar Mohamed Al-Sheikh, commander of the SAF's Al-Butana Brigade, stressed that the enemy has been completely expelled from this area, and it has been cleaned up. Now, our units are combing the areas outside the refinery, and there is no enemy presence. Our units are still finding weapons, equipment, and ammunition left behind by the enemy when it fled, he said. The refinery was one of the strategic sites captured by the RSF during the early days of the armed conflict, as it is located just 6 km from a paramilitary base. Before the war, the RSF was responsible for guarding the refinery, but when the fighting erupted on April 15, 2023, it announced control of the refinery, the country's largest oil facility. The Khartoum refinery had been subjected to several fires during the recent conflict, with the two conflicting parties accusing each other of causing them. The refinery had also been hit by aerial and artillery bombardments which damaged some of its storage tanks, control centers, and parts of its main pipeline. The devastating conflict between the SAF and the RSF has claimed at least 27,000 lives and displaced over 15 million people, either inside or outside Sudan, according to estimates by international organisations.

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Fire persists at Sudan's largest oil refinery following army's recapture