Sudan’s civil war sets ablaze country’s largest oil refinery

Fighting around Sudan’s largest oil refinery set the sprawling complex ablaze, satellite data shows, sending thick, black polluted smoke over the country’s capital.

Forces loyal to Sudan’s military under army chief Gen. Abdel al-Fattah Burhan later claimed they captured the refinery, owned by Sudan’s government and the state-run China National Petroleum Corp. The facility represents a long-sought prize for the military in its civil war with the rebel Rapid Support Force.

International mediation attempts and pressure tactics, including a US assessment that the RSF and its proxies are committing genocide, have not halted the fighting.

The al-Jaili refinery sits some 60 kilometres north of Khartoum, the capital. The refinery has been subject to previous attacks as the RSF has claimed control of the facility since April 2023, as their forces had been guarding it. Local Sudanese media report the RSF also surrounded the refinery with fields of landmines to slow any advance.

But the facility, capable of handling 100,000 barrels of oil a day, remained broadly intact until Thursday. That day, an attack on at the refinery set fires across the complex, according to satellite data from Nasa satellites that track wildfires worldwide.

Satellite images taken by Planet Labs PBC on Friday showed vast areas of the refinery ablaze. The images, shot just after 12:00 GMT, showed flames shooting up into the sky in several spots. Oil tanks at the facility stood burned, covered in soot.