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Juba has enjoyed 24-hour electricity since late December following the start-up of a new 30MW power plant and grid infrastructure in November, the first time anywhere in South Sudan has had access to uninterrupted network power. Local developer Ezra Construction & Development Group commissioned new power generation units in Juba’s Kondokoro district in November in the first part of a four-phase project. The planned second phase will add another 30MW, followed by 20MW in phases three and four.

Egypt’s Elsewedy Electric signed a turnkey contract worth $45m with the Ministry of Energy and Dams on 3 December to build a 20MW solar PV plant with a 35MWh battery system. The project will be located in Nesitu County around 20km from Juba on a 250,000m2 site. The African Export-Import Bank will finance the project, which is expected online in 2020. It is expected to produce 29GWh/yr, supplying power to more than 58,000 homes and reducing CO2 emissions by around 12,000 t/yr. Construction is expected to take one year.

The government of South Sudan commissioned a new power plant and a $38m upgraded power distribution system for Juba on 21 November. Local developer Ezra Construction & Development Group commissioned the 33MW first phase of a 100MW power plant due for completion by the end of 2021. The project was approved by the government in August 2017 and developed on a build, own, operate, transfer basis. Construction started in late 2017. The Juba Power Distribution System Rehabilitation and Expansion Project was financed by the African Development Bank (AfDB).

The Ministry of Finance has agreed a loan with the African Export Import Bank (Afreximbank) against future crude sales to finance infrastructure development and oil well rehabilitation, according to documents seen by African Energy. The loan, concluded in recent weeks, is worth $400m, two sources close to the market told African Energy.The structure of the deal is similar to an existing crude pre-sales agreement between the government and Afreximbank. Crude cargoes will be bought by local/Indian joint venture Trinity Energy and lifted by Glencore.

The government of South Sudan has followed through on its promise to put a stop to pre-financing deals done directly with oil traders. “All prepayments to companies have been stopped,” an oil executive based in Juba told African Energy. But a more complex deal, in which the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) issues letters of credit (LCs) to the government against the proceeds of future crude sales, remains in place.The compromise ends the most costly deals.

A consortium led by China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) has announced an oil discovery near the Adar oilfield in Block 3. New oil minister Awow Daniel Chuang told Platts the discovery was estimated to contain 300m barrels of recoverable oil.The discovery could potentially be tied back to the nearby Adar production facilities, from where oil is sent to a central processing plant at Paloch, then piped north to Port Sudan for export.

Trinity Energy plans a 40,000-b/d refinery in the oil hub of Paloich in the Upper Nile region. The project will cost $250m-$300m and produce 2m t/yr of petroleum products, Trinity co-founder and director Richard Raja told African Energy. South Sudan currently has no refinery, although several projects have come and gone since independence. Speaking to African Energy at the Africa Oil & Power conference in London on 17 June, Raja said financing was close to completion.

Trinity Holdings has gained extensive traction in South Sudan’s oil sector since its incorporation in October 2010. In March 2013, it created Trinity Energy, principally as a vehicle for its refined products distribution business. In December 2014, Trinity Holdings, majority-owned by local businessman Akol Emmanuel Ayii, created two further companies: Trinity Oil Services and Trinity Inter-Trade. Both are 90/10 partnerships between Ayii, who has close to ties to President Salva Kiir, and Indian businessman Richard Raja.

Norway’s Scatec Solar announced on 7 May that it has signed a contract with the International Organisation for Migration to build a solar photovoltaic (PV) plant with battery storage to supply the Humanitarian Hub in Malakal. Scatec will design, supply, install and operate a 700kW solar plant with a 1.6MWh battery system, which will combine with existing diesel generators. The company is partnering for the project with Kube Energy, another Norwegian company.

South Africa’s state-owned Strategic Fuel Fund (SFF) signed a deal with the South Sudan government on 6 May to explore Block B2 in the Muglad Basin. The SFF will take a 90% operating interest in the block, with state-owned Nilepet taking 10%. It is only the second exploration deal signed by South Sudan since independence in 2011, following a deal with Nigeria’s Oranto Petroleum for the adjacent Block B3 in March 2018. The agreement was brokered by Johannesburg-based Centurion Law Group, which also arranged the Oranto deal.

South Sudan shipped three 600,000-bbl cargoes of Nile Blend from Port Sudan in April after selling only one cargo in the previous five years, according to trading data seen by African Energy. Nile Blend is produced from blocks 1, 2 and 4 by Greater Pioneer Operating Company, a consortium of China National Petroleum Corporation, Petronas, ONGC Videsh and state oil company Nile Petroleum Corporation.China National United Oil Corporation (ChinaOil) lifted cargoes on behalf of the overseas joint venture partners on 14-16 April and 27-29 April.

South Sudan is exporting 170,000 b/d of crude via it pipeline to Republic of the Sudan and petroleum minister Ezekiel Lol Gatkuoth expects to increase output from Block 5A from 5,000 b/d to 17,000-20,000 b/d by May 2020, working in co-operation with Khartoum-based Sudan National Petroleum Corporation (Sudapet).

The Toma South field on blocks 1, 2 and 4 resumed production on 25 August at an initial 3,000 b/d, petroleum ministry director-general Awow Daniel Chuang told African Energy. This has now risen to 7,000 b/d and will reach 10,000 b/d when renovation work is completed. Toma South is the first of five fields on the blocks being brought back on stream following the civil conflict. It will be followed successively by El-Nar, Unity, Manga and El-Toor.

In lifting contracts agreed by Juba in early July for crude shipments in August, there is no cargo for Sudan Petroleum Corporation, signalling an end to the diversion of oil cargoes to Khartoum to pay South Sudan’s oil debts. Energy minister Ezekiel Lol Gatkuoth said in February that the transfers would cease in June, but the timing of Juba’s decision is still perplexing. In recent months, relations between the two capitals have been warming, both over the resumption of oil production in shut-down fields in South Sudan and efforts to end South Sudan’s civil war.

China Oil has displaced Unipec as the dominant marketer of South Sudan’s Dar Blend crude, lifting cargoes in all but two months of 2018. China Oil has been contracted to lift 9.2m bbls of crude so far this year, almost a third of the country’s 29.6m-bbl production, and 43% of volumes net of crude diversions to Sudan. The firm’s contracted shipments so far this year have more than doubled to an average 1.15m bbls/month from 483,000 b/d in 2017.