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According to a report published in July by the Ministry of Petroleum and Mining, Juba is evaluating three alternatives for a new oil export pipeline that would end its dependence on two existing pipelines via Sudan. The three routes under consideration are: from Upper Nile State via Ethiopia to Djibouti; from Unity State to Lamu in Kenya; and from Unity State via Uganda to Mombasa in Kenya. The Lamu option would cost an estimated $4bn, while the other routes would each cost $3bn, according to the report.

Adamantine Energy, owned by East Africa specialist Chris Matchette-Downes, has been awarded Block 11B in north-west Kenya.

Tullow Oil’s Ngamia-1 find south-west of Lake Turkana is likely to intensify a minor scramble that has developed in recent times for two of the last pieces of open acreage in the country, Block 11A in the Lotikipi Basin and 11B in the Gatome Basin.

The Republic of South Sudan became the newest member of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank Group (WBG) on 18 April when finance and economic planning minister Kosti Manibe Ngai signed the two institutions’ articles of agreement in Washington.

The government of South Sudan may be attempting to lure Chevron back into blocks 3 and 7, a well-placed source told African Energy. Chevron is seen as a possible replacement for the Petrodar Operating Company (PDOC) consortium, which the government has accused of co-operating with Khartoum in “stealing” oil by underreporting output from wells.

Soon after signing a pipeline agreement with Juba, Kenya is about to license an oil block in a border area to which South Sudan has a claim. Preoccupied by an impending financial crisis, the new state looks likely to keep quiet on the Ilemi Triangle issue as it attempts to defy the sceptics and make the pipeline a reality, writes Adrian J Browne

South Sudan has shut down much of its oil production amid a row with Khartoum over transit fees for its use of the pipeline to South Sudan, and added to tensions by signing an agreement with Kenya for a pipeline from Juba to LamuJuba plugs wells and threatens to export through Kenya as tensions with Khartoum escalate

China’s preoccupation with the major domestic political changes to come this year when senior officials leave office would normally preclude major policy shifts. But events in the Gulf and in long-standing African allies may force Beijing to focus more on foreign relationships

The Khartoum government’s Oil Exploration and Production Authority (OEPA) is attempting to entice new exploration with an international licensing round for six vast blocks

The party’s over in Juba following South Sudan’s independence day on 9 July, but the new, officially English-speaking state carved out of the Republic of Sudan remains under intense scrutiny, from international organisations and business groups, as well as from international oil companies which must come to terms with the region’s new political configuration (AE 213/1).

With no deal yet in place on oil revenue-sharing between north and south Sudan, Khartoum has imposed a pipeline usage fee of $22.80/bbl on South Sudan’s exports

As South Sudan celebrates its birth and its neighbours issue statements of support, the Ilemi Triangle border dispute seems to have been forgotten. Nairobi and Khartoum have both eyed this notoriously volatile area’s oil prospects in recent decades, but Juba has yet to publically take a stance

Without genuine co-operation over oil flows, efforts to rein in militias and a concerted international effort to overcome Abyei and other crises, history may show that the January referendum and independence day celebrations were a high point for the new South Sudan and its troubled northern neighbour

Another Sudanese drama beckons with President Omar Hassan Al-Bashir’s threat to shut off the main pipeline linking oil fields in the soon-to-be-independent south with the export terminal at Port Sudan unless the Government of South Sudan (GoSS) continues to share revenues or pays a transit fee on every barrel exported

Growing political tensions across Sudan as the date for southern secession approaches are slowing international trade and risk-taking business, writes Kevin Godier