RSF seizes Sudan’s largest oil field

This handout picture released by the Sudanese Rapid Support Forces (RSF) on October 30, 2025, shows RSF members reportedly detaining a fighter known as Abu Lulu (L) in El-Fasher, in war-torn Sudan’s western Darfur region. In a statement late on October 30, the RSF said it had detained several fighters accused of "violations that occurred during the liberation" of the city, including Lulu who appeared in multiple videos on his TikTok committing summary executions. The RSF, at war with the army since April 2023, seized El-Fasher -- the army's last stronghold in Darfur -- on October 26 after an 18-month siege. (Photo by Rapid Support Forces (RSF) / AFP) / RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE - MANDATORY CREDIT "AFP PHOTO / SUDANESE RAPID SUPPORT FORCES (RSF)"

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The Rapid Support Forces seized Sudan’s largest oil field on Monday, paramilitary, army, and industry sources said, as the country’s warring parties wrestle for control of the strategic, resource-rich Kordofan region.

Since the paramilitary RSF dislodged the army from its last holdout in Darfur at the end of October, the focus of the fighting has shifted to neighbouring Kordofan, where strikes on a kindergarten and hospital last week killed scores of children, according to the WHO.

“The liberation of the Heglig oil region is a pivotal point in the liberation of the entire homeland, given the region’s economic importance,” the RSF said in a statement Monday.

An RSF source told AFP the base that housed the local army division had also been captured.

An engineer at the Heglig field, in the far south of Kordofan, confirmed the RSF’s takeover of the facility, telling AFP the team had “shut it down and halted production, and the workers were evacuated to South Sudan.”

Army forces withdrew from the area “to protect the oil facilities and prevent damage,” a military source told AFP.

The three sources spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak to the media.

Since April 2023, the RSF has been waging a war with the regular army that has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced 12 million more and decimated the country’s already fragile infrastructure.

Last week, a drone attack in South Kordofan state hit a kindergarten and a hospital, killing 114 people, including 63 children, the World Health Organisation’s chief said Monday, citing the agency’s Attacks on Health Care monitoring system.

Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus condemned the “senseless” strikes, which local authorities and the army-aligned foreign ministry blamed on the RSF.

“Disturbingly, paramedics and responders came under attack as they tried to move the injured from the kindergarten to the hospital,” Ghebreyesus wrote on X.

Oil revenue ‘disaster’

The Heglig field is the country’s largest and is also the main processing facility for South Sudan’s oil exports, which make up nearly all of Juba’s government revenue.

“The processing plant near the field through which South Sudanese oil passes was also shut down,” the engineer said.

The pipeline that carries South Sudanese oil from the southern border to Port Sudan on the Red Sea is also a key source of income for impoverished Sudan, which has seen its economy crumble during the war.

When Juba seceded in 2011, it took nearly all of Sudan’s oil deposits with it. Heglig was disputed between the two countries and the site of brief clashes in 2012.

In addition to Heglig, the RSF also controls key oil fields in the west operated since the 1990s by China before being forced shut early in the war.

Last month, the Chinese National Petroleum Corporation informed the Sudanese government it intended to end its investments, according to a copy of the letter seen by AFP.

Former oil minister Gadein Ali Obeid described the situation as a “disaster” for Sudan.

The country has now “lost its two main oil-producing regions, Heglig and Block 6”, he said, referring to the Chinese-operated site further west.

“All of Sudan’s oil production originates from both of them… Even oil from Block 6 was processed at Heglig, which used to handle between 80,000 and 100,000 barrels per day for Sudan and South Sudan,” he added

Since losing their last toehold in western Darfur, the army has been on the defensive, trying to halt the paramilitary advance through Kordofan and back towards the capital Khartoum.

Sudan is now effectively split in two, with the army holding the north, east and centre, and the RSF in control of the west and, with the help of its allies, swathes of the south.

AFP

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