"Oil companies operating in Sudan were aware of the killing, bombing, and looting that took place in the south, all in the name of opening up the oilfields," said Rone. "These facts were repeatedly brought to their attention in public and private meetings, but they continued to operate and make a profit as the devastation went on."
Conditions for civilians in the oilfields actually worsened when the Canadian company Talisman Energy Inc. and the Swedish company Lundin Oil AB were lead partners in two concessions in southern Sudan. Amid mounting pressure from rights groups, Talisman sold its interest in its Sudanese concessions in late 2002, and Lundin followed in June.
These Western-based corporations were replaced by the state-owned oil companies of China and Malaysia- CNPC, or China National Petroleum Corp., and Petronas, or Petrolium Nasional Berhad-which had already been partners with Talisman and Lundin. Following CNPC and Petronas, a third state-owned Asian oil company, India's ONGC Videsh Ltd., began operations in Sudan.
Statistics from the Sudanese government and the oil companies show how the major share (60 percent) of the US$580 million received in oil revenue by this poverty-stricken country in 2001 was absorbed by its military, both for foreign weapons purchases and for the development of a domestic arms industry.
http://www.hrw.org/press/2003/11/sudan112503.htm In the oilfields of Sudan, civilians are being killed and raped, their villages burnt to the ground. They are caught in a war for oil, part of the wider civil war between northern and southern Sudan that has been waged for decades. Since large-scale production began two years ago, oil has moved the war into a new league. Across the oil-rich regions of Sudan, the government is pursuing a 'scorched earth' policy to clear the land of civilians and to make way for the exploration and exploitation of oil by foreign oil companies.
This Christian Aid report, The scorched earth, shows how the presence of international oil companies is fuelling the war. Companies from Asia and the West, including the UK, have helped build Sudan's oil industry, offering finance, technological expertise and supplies, to create a strong and growing oil industry in the centre of the country. In the name of oil, government forces and government-supported militias are emptying the land of civilians, killing and displacing hundreds of thousands of southern Sudanese. Oil industry infrastructure - the same roads and airstrips which serve the companies - is used by the army as part of the war. In
retaliation, opposition forces have attacked government-controlled towns and villages, causing further death and displacement.
Exports of Sudan's estimated reserves of two billion barrels of oil are paying for the build-up of a Sudanese homegrown arms industry as well as paying for more arms imports. Without oil, the civil war being fought between the government of Sudan and the main opposition force, the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) is at a stalemate; with oil, it can only escalate.
The Sudanese government itself now admits that oil is funding the wider civil war. 'Sudan will be capable of producing all the weapons it needs thanks to the growing oil industry,' announced General Mohamed Yassin just eleven months after the oil began flowing out of the new pipeline into the supertankers at the Red Sea port. The government now earns roughly US$1 million a day from oil - equivalent to the US$1 million it spends daily fighting the war. The equation is simple, the consequences devastating.
http://www.christian-aid.org.uk/indepth/0103suda/sudano... Oil linked to Sudan abuses
Civil war continues in the oil-producing area
The British charity Christian Aid has called on foreign oil companies involved in Sudan to pull out because of what it calls the government's systematic policy of depopulating oil-rich areas.
A strong signal needs to be sent to the government of Sudan, and the companies have major leverage
Mark Curtis
Christian Aid
In a report published on Thursday, it says Sudan's oil exports, which began nearly two years ago, have fuelled the civil war which has already claimed two million lives.
The report says Sudanese Government troops, and militias allied to them, have killed or terrorised tens of thousands of civilians into leaving their homes to make way for foreign oil companies to explore and extract the new reserves.
Christian Aid's policy director, Mark Curtis, told the BBC that the companies needed to use their influence to send a strong signal to the Sudanese Government.
more
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/1221618.stm Sudan, Oil, and African Muslim vs. African Muslim
Southern Darfur, like southern Sudan, is rich in oil. The Chinese National Petroleum Corporation holds the large oil concession in southern Darfur. Chinese soldiers are alleged to be protecting Chinese oil interests.
It is also alleged that the rebels in southern Darfur are getting weapons from outside Sudan. "UN observers say they have better weapons than the Sudanese army, and are receiving supplies by air," according to Crescent International (UK).
The government of Sudan, after agreeing with UN Secretary General Kofi Anan to a 90-day period to end the conflict, was given 30 days under a UN resolution pushed through by the U.S. and Britain.
Sudan, largely undeveloped, and barely emerging from colonial oppression, has been given a virtually impossible task of pacifying an area the size of France. This may be the pretext for yet another U.S.-British intervention for oil
more
http://www.twf.org/News/Y2004/0807-Darfur.html 
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