South Sudan Courts Oil Investors as Sudan’s Warring Forces Take Their Share

South Sudan is courting fresh capital for 14 exploration blocks and a production increase from roughly 170,000 barrels per day to 230,000, which investors would find impossible to control once those barrels left the country. Captive to neighboring Sudan's civil war, South Sudan is essentially divvying up its oil, under duress, between the Sudanese Army and the rival paramilitary RSF, which extract payment before the oil can reach the Red Sea.

The government-backed South Sudan Oil & Power conference will put that proposition before investors in Juba at the end of the month, and its organizers place current production at 170,000 barrels per day, describing 230,000 bpd as a short-term target.