South Sudan: Will Star Shine for South Sudan? Scrutinising South Sudan's First Post-Independence Oil Deal

Oct 27, 2014 | Global Witness
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South Sudan’s first post-independence oil deal is high-risk and in urgent need of further scrutiny, according to a new Global Witness report released today. The seven month investigation into the deal between the South Sudanese government and the Spanish-owned oil company Star Petroleum for two of the country’s last remaining oil blocks, uncovered that:

• the company is closely connected to a businessman convicted of a million euro fraud;
• no information about who owns Star Petroleum is available to the public. Instead the company’s shareholders are all other companies registered in tax havens or unknown jurisdictions;
• the company isn’t producing oil anywhere else in the world;
• the deal is being negotiated behind closed doors, and through a loophole in the law, which means that Star has faced no competition from other companies in its negotiations for the concession.