Heglig oilfield output has reached 26,000 bpd, Sudan Tribune reports, even as the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) extracts transit fees on crude moving through territory it controls in Sudan's conflict-affected oil-producing regions.

The figure marks a partial recovery at the Unity State border field — the centerpiece of Sudan's remaining production after the 2011 separation with South Sudan and the loss of roughly three-quarters of the combined output base. Heglig, operated from the Muglad Basin blocks once run by Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company partners, has repeatedly changed hands between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the RSF since fighting erupted in April 2023.

The transit-fee arrangement points to a pragmatic, if fragile, commercial understanding between Khartoum's state oil machinery and the paramilitary force holding pipeline corridors. Crude from Heglig and related central Sudanese fields must move north through the Greater Nile Oil Pipeline to Port Sudan on the Red Sea for export, and any chokepoint along that route — including RSF-controlled crossings — can halt flow entirely.

For operators and traders, the 26,000 bpd figure is modest by the standards of the basin's late-2000s peak, when Sudan produced roughly 450,000–500,000 bpd nationwide. Sanctions, war damage, and field decline have compressed volumes, and the current number reflects production carried out under wartime conditions with limited access to workover rigs, chemicals, and trained crews.

The RSF's fee extraction also raises legal and compliance questions for any foreign offtakers lifting Sudanese crude at Port Sudan. Payments flowing to an armed group — rather than to the state-owned Sudan Oil Corporation or its partners — could trigger due-diligence obligations under sanctions and anti-money-laundering frameworks, depending on how transactions are structured.

Sudan Tribune's reporting does not specify the fee rate, the payment mechanism, or which entity is transferring the funds. The arrangement appears confined to transit through RSF-held territory rather than any transfer of field ownership or operatorship.

Production continuity at Heglig matters beyond Sudan's fiscal position. The field feeds the Greater Nile pipeline system that also carries South Sudanese crude — historically around 150,000 bpd — to Port Sudan under a transit agreement that has itself been suspended and restarted repeatedly since 2023. Any sustained RSF levy on the route sets a precedent for how South Sudanese barrels might be taxed in transit, a question Juba's oil ministry and its upstream partners — China National Petroleum Corp., Petronas, and India's ONGC Videsh among them — have had to monitor throughout the conflict.

The war has already demonstrated the route's vulnerability. Flow stopped entirely in early 2024 when the pipeline lost power supplies and safe access, and restarts since then have come in stops and starts tied to local ceasefires and the frontline's position relative to pumping stations.

Analysts following Sudan's energy sector caution that reported output figures from the conflict zone are hard to verify independently, and 26,000 bpd may represent nameplate or periodic throughput rather than sustained daily production. No independent audit of Heglig's wells, facilities, or metering has been possible since the war began.

The watch items now are threefold: whether the RSF transit-fee arrangement holds and formalizes into a durable tolling structure; whether South Sudanese crude transit resumes at scale under the same or separate terms; and whether Port Sudan liftings — the terminal through which all export barrels must pass — continue without disruption as the SAF works to secure the corridor. Each of these determines whether Sudan's rump upstream sector stabilizes near 26,000 bpd or slides back toward zero.