Sudanese Supreme Court issued an arrest warrant (11th October 2021),
against the country managers of Petronas, and the Chinese National Petroleum Company (CNPC). The arrest warrant was issued due to their failure to settle the labour issues of PetroDar Operating Company (PDOC). The government is also planning to confiscate assets acquired by these companies through illegal means during the previous regimes.
PDOC is a joint venture company in Sudan in which Petronas (a Malaysian oil and gas company) and CNPC (a major national oil and gas corporation of China) have ownership. The major stakeholder in PDOC is the CNPC with 41% shareholding and the close second is Petronas with 40% shareholding. Other shareholders include Sudapet (Sudan), SINOPEC (China), and Tri-Ocean Energy (Kuwait).
A PDOC unit with around 600 workers (mostly local nationals of Sudan) was
closed in the year 2018 without settling the workers dues who subsequently
approached the court. PDOC was accused of violating the country’s Labor Act regulation while denying its employees’ overtime compensation, amounting to approximately $5.5 million during the previous administration. Subsequent to the issue of arrest warrant by the Sudanese Supreme Court the Country Managers of CNPC and Petronas left the country hurriedly before the same was executed. It is pursuing legal recourse to cancel the warrant of arrest. In a press statement it said “PetroDar Operating Company (PDOC), a joint venture company in Sudan in which Petronas has an interest, is pursuing legal recourse to cancel a rongful warrant of arrest issued against its former officers relating to trade union claims made against PDOC. PDOC’s external counsel is in the process of cancelling the warrant of arrest.”
In another case, Sudan transitional government is seeking to confiscate assets belonging to Petronas, alleging they were acquired through illegal means during the rule of ousted leader Omar al-Bashir. The government even passed an act and formed the Empowerment Removal, Anti- corruption and Money Retrieving Committee to do the same. Petronas, however, claimed that “its rights over the land and Petronas Complex in Khartoum, Sudan were obtained in accordance with rightful applicable laws.” And it filed a request for arbitration at the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) on the matter. Paraphrasing Sudan’s activist Eric Reeves “Chinese operations in Sudan were marked from the beginning, by a deep complicity in gross human rights violations.”
The two cases at hand, show that many foreign countries and investors are interested only in the exploration of oil while ignoring the needs of the Sudanese people and compliance with the laws of the land. They try to defend themselves and try to globalize the issue as well but remain complacent to the desires of the locals and even go to the extent of Human Rights Violations. The balance has to be brought by the Governments of such resourceful nations by taking a strict stance against undue exploration of their resources by taking a cue from the Sudanese Government.