The youngest state in the world has one of the biggest oil logistics problems

The chasm between potential and achievement could not be vaster. The new democracy in South Sudan is stumbling and fumbling along, beset by enormous challenges to its efforts to become an eastern African powerhouse.

South Africa’s GHGs are road freight-heavy

According to Deputy Minister of Transport Jeremy Cronin, who addressed a plenary session at the South African Transport Conference on 11 July 2011, South Africa’s transport-related greenhouse gas emissions profile shows a poor modal mix of rail versus road, aviation versus maritime, cars versus public transport, minibuses versus mass carriers, and non-motorised transport versus motorised transport, with problematic socio-economic geography (distance to markets) and urban sprawl in South Africa and its metropolitan areas being among the most scarcely populated in the world.

The impact of frozen libyan oil producion

Ongoing events in Libya – the expected duration and impact of which many had at first badly miscalculated – have led to a number of serious challenges in the global energy sector. Oil production in Libya (Africa’s largest oil producer and the ninth largest in the world, producing 1.8 million barrels per day prior to the conflict) has come to a standstill.

The long arm of the law just got longer

This year, I have endured the attempted elicitation of bribes in Liberia, Uganda, Ghana and, most recently, Zambia. As anyone working within the energy industry in Africa knows, bribe-dodging is not an unusual practice. In fact, most of my colleagues would agree that it is par for the course when doing business in so-called high-risk jurisdictions.