The state government told companies to shut down production at the Gumri and Adar oil fields “because of security precautions,” Upper Nile Mining and Petroleum Minister Francis Ayul said in a phone interview today.

“Some of the foreign engineers have been given priority to go back” to the national capital, Juba, he said. “Some of the workers will remain in the field to monitor and maintain facilities.”

Upper Nile is the only state in the world’s newest nation producing oil, two months after violence erupted in the country. Clashes broke out in Malakal, the state capital, on Feb. 18 in violation of a cease-fire agreement signed on Jan 23.

The government army “tactically withdrew in Malakal to avoid unnecessary panic and death among innocent youths,” President Salva Kiir’s press spokesman, Ateny Wek Ateny, told reporters today in Juba.