"Will Star Shine for South Sudan? Scrutinising South Sudan's first post-independence oil deal", 27 Oct 2014

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...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 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...The deal is being done at a time of crisis in South Sudan. The ongoing conflict has sparked a humanitarian calamity and left 1.7 million people displaced. South Sudan’s oil dependent economy is in trouble: oil production has been halved by the instability and international oil prices have fallen in recent months, depleting government income...“One of the fundamental problems with this deal is that the public know very little about it,” Vickers added. “Politicians have promised their citizens transparency and yet they’re negotiating behind closed doors. It’s time for them to lift the lid on who Star is and why they are negotiating with the company.”