South Sudan to Offer 14 Oil Blocks for Licensing by Q1 2020

FILE PHOTO: A worker walks by an oil well at the Toma South oil field to Heglig, in Ruweng State, South Sudan August 25, 2018. REUTERS/Jok Solomun/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: A worker walks by an oil well at the Toma South oil field to Heglig, in Ruweng State, South Sudan August 25, 2018. REUTERS/Jok Solomun/File Photo
TT
20

South Sudan to Offer 14 Oil Blocks for Licensing by Q1 2020

FILE PHOTO: A worker walks by an oil well at the Toma South oil field to Heglig, in Ruweng State, South Sudan August 25, 2018. REUTERS/Jok Solomun/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: A worker walks by an oil well at the Toma South oil field to Heglig, in Ruweng State, South Sudan August 25, 2018. REUTERS/Jok Solomun/File Photo

South Sudan plans to offer 14 oil blocks to exploration companies in a licensing round by the first quarter 2020, its oil minister said on Tuesday.

“We are inviting all our investors that wanted to invest in South Sudan to come and move on to those blocks,” Awow Daniel Chuang, told an Africa Oil and Power conference.

The country gets almost all its revenue from oil and has boosted output, now at 180,000 barrels per day, as it struggles to rebuild its shattered economy after a five-year civil war, Reuters reported.

“We are opening up the licensing rounds for everyone on a competitive basis and this is will help us to get the right partners, investors that can be easily verified because we don’t want to continue to have direct negotiations,” Chuang added.

The government says South Sudan’s oil at present comes from blocks 3,7 and blocks 1, 2 and 4.

Chuang said the blocks to be offered for licensing will be blocks A1 to A6 and at present data was being collected on them.

“Within the next two months, we should be able to complete the work ... By the first quarter of 2020, we will be having our first licensing round,” he said.

There has been an pickup in foreign investment through oil and gas exploration companies including Oranto Petroleum, which signed a six-year exploration and production sharing agreement for block B3 in 2017.

According to Reuters, in May, South Sudan and South Africa also signed an exploration and production sharing agreement for Block B2.



Trump Announces 30% Tariffs Against EU, Mexico to begin August 1

President Donald J. Trump speaks at a roundtable discussion at the Community Emergency Operations Center in Kerrville, Texas, Friday, July 11, 2025. (Ricardo B. Brazziell/Austin American-Statesman via AP)
President Donald J. Trump speaks at a roundtable discussion at the Community Emergency Operations Center in Kerrville, Texas, Friday, July 11, 2025. (Ricardo B. Brazziell/Austin American-Statesman via AP)
TT
20

Trump Announces 30% Tariffs Against EU, Mexico to begin August 1

President Donald J. Trump speaks at a roundtable discussion at the Community Emergency Operations Center in Kerrville, Texas, Friday, July 11, 2025. (Ricardo B. Brazziell/Austin American-Statesman via AP)
President Donald J. Trump speaks at a roundtable discussion at the Community Emergency Operations Center in Kerrville, Texas, Friday, July 11, 2025. (Ricardo B. Brazziell/Austin American-Statesman via AP)

President Donald Trump on Saturday announced he's levying tariffs of 30% against the European Union and Mexico.

Trump announced the tariffs on two of the United States' biggest trade partners in letters posted to his social media account.

In his letter to Mexico's leader, Trump acknowledged that the country has been helpful in stemming the flow of undocumented migrants and fentanyl into the United States. But he said the country has not done enough to stop North America from turning into a “Narco-Trafficking Playground.”

“Mexico has been helping me secure the border, BUT, what Mexico has done, is not enough,” Trump added, The AP news reported.

Trump in his letter to the European Union said that the US trade deficit was a national security threat.

“We have had years to discuss our Trading Relationship with The European Union, and we have concluded we must move away from these long-term, large, and persistent, Trade Deficits, engendered by your Tariff, and Non-Tariff, Policies, and Trade Barriers,” Trump wrote in the letter to the EU. “Our relationship has been, unfortunately, far from Reciprocal.”

Trump is in the midst of an announcement blitz of new tariffs with allies and foes alike, a bedrock of his 2024 campaign that he said would set the foundation for reviving a US economy that he claims has been ripped off by other nations for decades.

With the reciprocal tariffs, Trump is effectively blowing up the rules governing world trade. For decades, the United States and most other countries abided by tariff rates set through a series of complex negotiations known as the Uruguay round. Countries could set their own tariffs – but under the “most favored nation’’ approach, they couldn’t charge one country more than they charged another.

With Saturday's letters, Trump has now issued tariff conditions on 24 countries and the 27-member European Union.

The European Union’s chief trade negotiator said earlier this week that a trade deal to avert higher tariffs on European goods imported to the US could be reached “even in the coming days.” Maroš Šefčovič told EU lawmakers in Strasbourg, France on Wednesday that the EU had been spared the increased tariffs contained in the letters Trump sent on Monday, and that an extension of talks would provide “additional space to reach a satisfactory conclusion.”

The bloc collectively sells more to the US than any other country. US goods imports from the EU topped $553 billion in 2022, according to the Office of the US Trade Representative.

Trump on April 2 proposed a 20% tariff for EU goods and then threatened to raise that to 50% after negotiations did not move as fast as he would have liked. Sefcovic did not mention any tariff figures.

The higher tariffs as well as any EU retaliation had been suspended as the two sides negotiate. However the base rate of 10% for most trade partners as well as higher rates of 25% on autos and 50% on steel and aluminum had gone into effect.

Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former Congressional Budget Office director and president of the center-right American Action Forum, said the letters were evidence that serious trade talks were not taking place over the past three months. He stressed that nations were instead talking amongst themselves about how to minimize their own exposure to the US economy and Trump.

“They’re spending time talking to each other about what the future is going to look like, and we’re left out,” Holtz-Eakin said.

He added that Trump was using the letters to demand attention, but, “In the end, these are letters to other countries about taxes he’s going to levy on his citizens.”