Juba should not treat this week’s groundbreaking in Lamu as a photo opportunity.
When South Sudan’s petroleum minister stood among dignitaries in Lamu, Kenya, on Wednesday, the ceremony looked like regional pageantry. It should be read as a warning and an opportunity. The world’s newest country lives or dies by a pipeline that runs through someone else’s war, and a $16 billion to $17 billion refinery on the Kenyan coast is the first credible chance in years to loosen that grip.
Start with the exposure. Sudan is the only outlet for South Sudan’s crude, and oil pays for roughly 98 percent of the state budget. In the three months before December 2025, Sudan shipped an average of 165,000 barrels a day of its neighbor’s oil, according to tanker-tracking data. Then came the interruptions. A pipeline stopped working in February 2024, and Khartoum declared force majeure a month later. Exports did not resume until January 2025, after a stoppage of nearly a year. Drone strikes on processing facilities halted flows again in November. In December, the Rapid Support Forces seized Heglig, the hub at the center of the pipeline network.
That is not a supply chain. It is a hostage situation, and every barrel that leaves South Sudan does so at the pleasure of whichever armed faction controls the road to Port Sudan.
Lamu offers something different. The Dangote-backed refinery is designed to process 700,000 barrels a day, with completion expected around 2030. Its central problem is crude. Kenya does not yet produce commercially, and Uganda’s oil is committed to the backers of its own export pipeline. Kenya’s presidential economic adviser has put regional production potential above 600,000 barrels a day, with South Sudan supplying about 350,000 of it. Juba holds the card the refinery most needs.
It would be a mistake to overplay that hand. Analysts expect a plant this size to run largely on blends of imported crude from West Africa, the Middle East and the Americas, and no one has promised South Sudan a place in the mix. Leverage has to be converted into contracts.
There is also a benefit that has little to do with exports. East Africa spends an estimated $20 billion a year importing fuel, and the refinery is meant to supply Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and South Sudan. For a landlocked country that pays a premium to haul refined products over long distances, a regional source of diesel and gasoline could lower costs and shorten supply lines. The fertilizer and chemical industries planned around the plant may eventually give Juba a way to add value to its own crude.
What is missing is the pipe. The regional infrastructure program built around Lamu once envisioned a line from South Sudan’s oil fields through Lokichar in Kenya to the coast. A feasibility study commissioned by Juba found both a Lamu route and a Djibouti route technically viable. Neither was built. Nothing announced on Wednesday commits anyone to building one now. A groundbreaking without a pipeline is a shovel in the ground for someone else’s benefit.
So what should Juba do? First, ask for equity. Kenya, Ethiopia and Rwanda have reportedly been offered a combined 30 percent stake in the project. South Sudan was not named. Even a small holding would buy a voice in crude sourcing. Second, negotiate a long-term supply agreement now, before the plant opens and the crude slate is set. Third, revive the pipeline study and pitch the refinery as its anchor customer, which makes the financing case stronger than it was a decade ago. And fourth, keep the existing route working, because it will pay the bills until at least 2030.
The risks are real. Roughly 70 percent of the refinery’s funding is expected to be debt, the project is at an early stage, and a pipeline would take years and require heavy capital. Nothing here is guaranteed.
But the alternative is to keep betting the entire economy on a corridor that has failed repeatedly and could fail again next month. The Lamu refinery will not free South Sudan from Port Sudan overnight. It is the best opening the country has had to stop depending on a single, broken road. Juba should walk through it.
The author, Denis Dumo, is a former South Sudanese journalist and media expert. He can be reached by email at denisdumo@gmail.com.
The views expressed in ‘opinion’ articles published by Radio Tamazuj are solely those of the writer. The veracity of any claims made is the responsibility of the author, not Radio Tamazuj.
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