South Sudan and Sudan have announced a deal over the south's exportation of oil through Sudan's pipelines, and the distribution of oil revenues. The agreement was made after one-day negotiations under the mediation of the African Union in Ethiopia. Former South African President and AU mediator Thabo Mbeki says the two sides would now sit down to finalize details.

Thabo Mbeki, Head, AU High Level Implementation Panel, said, "All of the matters and the issues that are outstanding were charges for transportation, processing, transit, all of that. They have agreed on all of these things. So what will remain, is then of course, given that was an agreement, is then to discuss when the oil companies should be asked for the resumption of production and export."

The negotiating teams agreed that South Sudan will pay about 9.48 US dollars a barrel to transport its fuel through Sudan's pipelines. But oil industry sources say restarting oil production could take six months or longer, as the pipelines have been filled with water to avoid gelling and some wells were not closed properly.

Landlocked South Sudan threw both economies into turmoil when in January it shut down its output of 350-thousand barrels a day, after failing to agree on a transit fee with Sudan which started seizing oil to compensate for what it called unpaid fees. The neighbors, which share a deep mistrust and have often not implemented previous arrangements, will still have to resolve the thorny issue of marking their disputed border. Mbeki said both sides now had time to settle the key security issue and other conflicts by September 22.

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