Jenny Vaughan / AFP - Getty Images

African Union lead mediator Thabo Mbeki speaks in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on Saturday to announce that Sudan and South Sudan have reached an agreement on how to share the oil riches controlled by Khartoum.

Landlocked South Sudan said it has a struck a deal with Sudan over oil exports through Sudan's pipelines, but the agreement won't go into effect until border issues are resolved, Khartoum officials said.

In a statement Saturday, South Sudan's government said that it will pay approximately $9.48 a barrel to transport its fuel through Sudan's pipelines.

The White House praised the deal and encouraged agreement on humanitarian issues as well.

South Sudan says the agreement on pipeline transportation fees will last for three and a half years, after which the countries may negotiate lower rates or South Sudan, which expects to have constructed a pipeline through Kenya, will stop using Sudan's pipeline.

A row over the sharing of the two countries' once-unified oil industry prompted South Sudan to shut down its 350,000-thousand-barrel-a-day oil production. Oil also sparked a dangerous military confrontation between the two sides in April, when South Sudan captured the disputed town of Heglig, which is responsible for more than half of Sudan's oil production.

The U.N. Security Council had given the African neighbors until Thursday to resolve all conflicts left over from South Sudan's secession a year ago under a 2005 peace agreement.

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U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who on Friday urged the two nations to resolve bitter disputes that earlier this year pushed the countries to the brink of war, welcomed announcement of the oil pact.

“This agreement reflects leadership and a new spirit of compromise on both sides,” she said in a prepared statement obtained by NBC News.

“As I said in Juba yesterday, the interests of their people were at stake. … The future of South Sudan is now brighter.”

"For Sudan, too, this agreement offers a way out of the extreme economic stress it is now experiencing,” Clinton said. “If Sudan would now also take the steps to peace in Southern Kordofan, Blue Nile and Darfur, and if it will respect the rights of all citizens, it can likewise give its people a brighter future.”

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Clinton is on an 11-day tour of Africa.

President Barack Obama, in a White House statement obtained by NBC News, said, "The leaders of Sudan and South Sudan deserve congratulations for reaching agreement and finding compromise on such an important issue, and I applaud the efforts of the international community which came together to encourage and support the parties in finding a resolution. ... I am also encouraged by the announcement of a possible agreement on humanitarian access to Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile, and urge the immediate implementation of this agreement to provide urgently needed humanitarian assistance to people in these areas."

The oil deal was announced in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where African Union mediator Thabo Mbeki said, "It's an (oil) agreement about all of the matters. The issues that were outstanding were charges for transportation, for processing, transit," Mbeki, the former South African president, told reporters.

"What will remain (now)...is to then discuss the steps as to when the oil companies should be asked to prepare for the resumption of production and export," Mbeki said.

He gave no time frame, saying only the parties had until Sept. 22 to resolve border security and other conflicts.

The two sides, deeply mistrustful of each other, have often not implemented previous agreements and still need to mark their 1,200-mile border and resolve charges both have made of supporting rebels in the other’s territory.

This article includes reporting by Reuters and The Associated Press.

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DIYARBAKIR, Turkey -- An explosion and fire has shut down twin pipelines that carry oil from Iraq to the Mediterranean, an official said Saturday. No one was hurt in the blast.

The explosion late Friday hit a section of a pipeline that carries oil from the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk to the Turkish port of Ceyhan, near the southeastern town of Midyat, Energy Ministry official said. A second line that runs parallel was not damaged, but was also shut down as a precaution, the official said.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of government rules, said the cause of the blast was under investigation but was most likely the result of sabotage.

The explosion started a fire at 11 p.m. (5 p.m. ET) on Friday, security sources said. Firefighters were battling to put out the blaze.

Officials blamed the attack on the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a Kurdish separatist group that has claimed responsibility for past attacks on the 600-mile pipeline.

Firat News, a website with ties to the PKK, also said the outlawed group was behind the attack.

Insurgents in Iraq have disrupted the transport of oil on the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline, the country's largest, in the past, and technical faults on the 35-year-old link, which consists of two pipes, have also cut flows.

The PKK, designated a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and the European Union, took up arms against the Turkish state in 1984, and more than 40,000 people, mainly Kurds, have died in the conflict. It has claimed responsibility for attacks on other natural-gas and oil pipelines in what it has said is a campaign to target Turkey's strategic assets.

It was not clear when oil flows to Ceyhan would resume.

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Kristen Roy / courtesy Leigh Day & Co.

A local farmer looks on as a piece of paper dipped in a pool in the area around the Bomu-Burry pipeline is shown partially covered with oil residue in October, 2011.

A troubled Shell oil pipeline in Nigeria ruptured, spilling around hundreds of gallons of crude oil a minute for around 24 hours, a member of a nearby community told msnbc.com on Tuesday.

"I saw oil coming out from the ground, like a stream, on the pipeline," Erabanabari Kobah, who lives near the Bomu-Bonny pipeline, told msnbc.com. 

"Coming from four different points that are leaking and in every one second from each of these point.  (It was) not less than two liters of oil are coming out every second," Kobah said, adding that he had filmed Sunday night's leak, although msnbc.com had yet to see the footage.

A company spokesman confirmed the onshore spill on the Bomu-Bonny pipeline in Nigeria's Delta region but said the company would not release any details related to it until an ongoing investigation involving the Royal Dutch Shell-run joint venture, SPDC, Nigerian regulators and representatives of the local community was complete.  

Landmark case: Nigerian villagers sue Shell over oil spills

The development could well complicate efforts for Shell, which is already facing a lawsuit for tens of millions of dollars in a London court for a leak on the same pipeline in nearby swampland.

Shell admits responsibility for two spills that devastated the Bodo fishing communities in the delta, a labyrinth of creeks and swamps.

The lawsuit, brought by 11,000 Nigerians from the Bodo community in the London High Court, concerns two oil spills in 2008/9 that they say destroyed their livelihoods and was at least 60 times worse than the company originally announced, advocacy group Amnesty International said on April 23.

Success for the claimants in the case would create a precedent that other communities affected by oil spills around the world might follow. It is being nervously watched by the oil industry.

100 miles of oil: Spill likely Nigeria’s worst in decade

Shell maintains that much of the oil spilled in the region is the result of theft and sabotage.  The case against the Shell rests on the contention that operational spills have caused extensive damage and, while there may be ongoing illegal theft from pipelines in the region, Shell are responsible for cleaning up the damage and compensating rural communities who have lost the fishing and farming income.

"If this was indeed operational failure, on the same pipeline from which the Bodo 2008 spills occurred, then it demonstrates an urgent need for the integrity of this particular pipeline to be reinforced or for it simply to be replaced," said Kristen Roy, of London-based law firm Leigh Day, which is representing the 11,000 Nigerians in the U.K.

Shell no longer operates in the area following lengthy disputes with local Nigerians about pollution, but still has pipelines and other infrastructure there and says it is committed to clearing up spills, whatever the cause.

PhotoBlog: Nigerian oil industry photos reveal extremes of poverty, wealth

 A United Nations report in August last year criticized Shell and the Nigerian government for contributing to 50 years of pollution in Ogoniland, which it says needs the world's largest ever oil clean-up that could take up to 30 years.

Kobah, a local environmental activist, said regardless of the outcome of the case against Shell he and others in the community wanted the company out of Nigeria. 

"I was brought up in that community and I can see an unbelievable change over time," he said. "Our trees are no longer producing fruit, harvests no longer produce food, the fishing is pathetic."

"I don't think Shell should be here anymore," he said. 

Reuters contributed to this report.

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