The rand has weakened against the dollar in early trade as markets digested comments from the head of the U.S. Federal Reserve signaling a gradual approach to interest rate hikes.
The rand traded at 14.30 per dollar, 0.25% weaker than its close on Friday.
Federal Reserve Chairperson Jerome Powel, had defended the U.S. central bank’s push to raise interest rates as healthy for the economy and signaled more hikes were coming despite President Donald Trump’s criticism of higher borrowing costs.
Meanwhile, South Sudan has resumed pumping 20 000 barrels of crude oil per day (bpd) from the Toma South oilfield, where production had been suspended since 2013, the Sudanese oil minister Azhari Abdulqader said. Production at five of the previously suspended oilfields was expected to reach 80 000 bpd after maintenance work is completed by the end of the year, Abdulqader told a news conference in Khartoum.
South Sudan’s oil output currently stands at 130 000 bpd and is expected to reach 210 000 bpd by year-end, he added.
South Sudan seceded from Sudan in 2011 when output peaked at 350 000 bpd but two years later the country was plunged into civil war. At the time fighting started, production was at about 245 000 barrels per day.
