As regional infrastructure developments take center stage in East Africa, a monumental energy project is unfolding on the Kenyan coast. Following the recent groundbreaking for the massive Dangote oil refinery in Lamu, designed to process a staggering 700,000 barrels of crude oil per day, the region is witnessing the largest refining facility of its kind. For South Sudan, the undisputed economic heavyweight in crude oil production within interior Africa, this development should have triggered immediate, aggressive diplomatic and economic engagement. Instead, Juba remained conspicuously absent from the foundational negotiations.
To understand the gravity of this missed opportunity, one must look back at the grand design of the Lamu Port-South Sudan-Ethiopia Transport (LAPSSET) corridor. Conceived as a multi-nation infrastructure blueprint, LAPSSET was intended to open up the landlocked interior of East Africa, integrating South Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda, and Rwanda into a vibrant trade highway linked to the Indian Ocean. The entire logic of routing such a trade corridor through Lamu Port relied fundamentally on South Sudan’s vast oil reserves serving as the primary anchor. Yet, while neighboring governments and private capital actively shape equity stakes, Juba operated from the sidelines.
In international political economy, a brutal axiom dictates state survival: “If you are not at the table, you are on the menu.” South Sudan produces the oil that could power regional energy dynamics, yet it consistently fails to leverage its production weight into structural bargaining power. When a multi-billion-dollar infrastructure project of this magnitude is planned and constructed without early-stage equity negotiations with Juba, the writing is already on the wall. South Sudan risks becoming a captive consumer of refined products processed from its own raw resources or, worse, being squeezed out of favorable pricing. Once the project is completed, negotiating leverage disappears because you cannot renegotiate to be part of the structure once the architecture is locked in.
This passive posture exposes a lack of strategic foresight within South Sudan’s leadership. Governance has become overly reactive, lurching from crisis to crisis while missing macroeconomic shifts happening right at our borders. Through vibrant diplomacy and proactive economic planning, Juba should have secured three critical pillars at the earliest stages of negotiation. Firstly, South Sudan should have negotiated a dedicated crude pipeline running directly from Block 5B to Lamu. This would not disrupt existing export routes through Port Sudan; instead, it would give South Sudan a powerful dual-outlet posture by partnering with private capital and inviting investors such as Dangote himself to fund and build the pipeline technology, to be repaid through future crude allocations.
Secondly, a fully integrated refinery backed by a secure South Sudanese pipeline would have unlocked massive multilateral financing. With guaranteed crude feedstock, international financial institutions such as the World Bank would find it commercially viable to fund complementary road, rail, and fiber-optic networks cutting through northern Kenya and into South Sudan, bringing long-term economic stability and security to historically volatile border communities.
Thirdly, early-stage negotiations would have given Juba the chance to acquire strategic land and equity stakes directly at the Port of Lamu. Land ownership at the port terminal creates skilled industrial jobs for South Sudanese youth, while technically slashing transit costs for our imports compared to the expensive, congested logistics chains currently relying solely on Mombasa or Port Sudan.
Conclusion
The Lamu refinery project serves as a sharp wake-up call for Juba. South Sudan cannot continue to sit back as a mere provider of raw extraction while regional partners dictate the terms of value addition and distribution. If the leadership of our country continues to ignore strategic economic planning, the unfulfilled promises of governance in our country will extend far beyond domestic policy and end up crippling our external economic future. To avoid being cheated by systems built on our own resources, our government should shed its reactive shell and realize that, in the ruthless arena of regional trade, silence and absence are a guarantee of exploitation. It is time to pay keen attention to our national interest.
The writer, Michael Thon Mangok, is a political analyst based in Juba and a former host of the Wake-Up Juba political talk show at Radio Bakhita.
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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