South Sudan Hires Ex-Blackwater Chief to Restore War-Damaged Oil Facilities

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-12-18/south-sudan-hires-ex-blackwater-chief-to-restore-war-hit-oil.html
By Ilya Gridneff Dec 18, 2014 1:19 PM GMT

The former head of U.S. security company Blackwater USA, Erik Prince, was hired by South Sudan to help repair damaged oil facilities and boost output cut by a year of civil war.

Prince’s Frontier Services Group Ltd. (500), a Hong Kong-listed logistics and transportation company, is being paid 18.7 million euros ($23.3 million) by South Sudan’s Ministry of Petroleum to transport supplies and perform maintenance on production facilities at the oil fields, Chief Executive Officer Gregg Smith said by phone from New York yesterday. About 30 employees including pilots, engineers and logistics technicians have been using helicopters and airplanes to reach South Sudan’s oil fields since September, Smith said.
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“We have no security contract, we have no training contract, it is purely logistic support, largely aviation based,” Smith said. “Our men are not armed, our security is provided by the government of South Sudan.”
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China National Petroleum Corp., Malaysia’s Petroliam Nasional Bhd. and India’s Oil & Natural Gas Corp. produce most of South Sudan’s crude. The companies evacuated some staff from the country because of the conflict
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Prince ran Blackwater from 1997 to 2010, when the company earned an estimated $1 billion in U.S. government contracts. Now he’s the chairman of Frontier Services, which is investing in Africa using cash from Asian investors including Citic Group, China’s largest state-owned group of companies
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Chinese and Malaysian oil companies may be open to Frontier’s help now, Patey said. That may not be the case once fighting ends, he said.

Company Profile for Frontier Services Group Ltd (500)