An explosive report published by Afrik.com has raised serious alarm over what it calls “a parallel system of oil governance” in South Sudan — Behind the collapse of the economy and the recent UAE embargo on Port Sudan, the report reveals the rise of a mysterious trader — EuroAmerica Energy — allegedly fronting for a foreign laundering network backed by Vice President Benjamin Bol Mel and Undersecretary of Petroleum Eng. Deng Lual Wol. According to Afrik.com, billions of dollars in oil revenues have vanished through this parallel system, while the South Sudanese pound collapses and more than 7.7 million citizens go hungry.
The Port Sudan Shock Exposes a Rotten Core
In August 2025, the United Arab Emirates banned maritime operations with Port Sudan, blocking exports for the terminal that handles 58 percent of South Sudan’s crude. For Juba, the shock was immediate — but, as Afrik.com writes, the embargo only unmasked a deeper decay: the oil system was already bankrupt.
A UN report dated 16 September 2025 and quoted by Afrik.com estimates that since independence in 2011, South Sudan generated $23 billion in oil income, yet only 36% reached the state budget. The rest, the report says, “disappeared into special projects and dubious debt repayments.”
Inside the Meteoric Rise of EuroAmerica Energy
Afrik.com reports that EuroAmerica Energy, a company unknown until recently and owned by Sudanese businessman Idris Taha, has “suddenly taken control of almost all national crude exports.” In barely a year, EuroAmerica replaced trading giants Vitol, Trafigura, and Glencore to become the sole buyer of South Sudan’s oil — something experts once thought impossible.
Unlike legitimate oil traders, EuroAmerica allegedly does not pre-finance shipments. Payments are delayed or never recorded in public accounts. A Nairobi-based analyst told Afrik.com: “The big players left because the risks were too high and the corruption too obvious.”
African Energy, also quoted by Afrik.com, says several international companies have filed arbitration cases over missing oil cargoes they already paid for — evidence of total administrative chaos.
The BGN Connection: A Sophisticated Money-Laundering System
Sources close to the matter reveal that EuroAmerica Energy is only one link in a more complex chain involving BGN, the Turkish oil trading giant headed by Rüya Bayegan, a Turkish-Serbian businesswoman who “burst into” the closed world of oil trading from Dubai following the fall of Gaddafi.
Citing confidential sources, Afrik.com describes a sophisticated laundering circuit: BGN buys oil through EuroAmerica, then channels the proceeds to private accounts in Dubai and Switzerland, bypassing the Central Bank of South Sudan entirely. The money is then re-invoiced through EuroAmerica to appear legitimate in Western banks.
This scheme, already used in Libya — where BGN now controls 30% of refined imports — allegedly drains hundreds of millions of dollars meant for South Sudan’s treasury. (Sources: Financial Times; Africa Intelligence; cited in Afrik.com.)
The Bol Mel System
At the political center, Afrik.com places Vice President Benjamin Bol Mel, accused by Parliament in August 2025 of “usurping institutional powers” and promoting EuroAmerica Energy.
The motion, quoted by Afrik.com, links him directly to the foreign-currency shortage crippling the Central Bank: “Oil revenues no longer reach the reserves.”
Bol Mel’s name is already tied to the “Oil for Roads” scandal — a $2.2 billion program meant to build strategic infrastructures that, according to the UN report cited by Afrik.com, resulted in $1.7 billion going to ARC Resources and Winners Construction, companies linked to Vice President Benjamin Bol Mel, for roads that were never built. Afrik.com further recalls that Benjamin Bol Mel has been under U.S. sanctions since 2017 for corruption and embezzlement of public funds related to the same “Oil for Roads” program.
Behind the scenes, Afrik.com identifies Eng. Deng Lual Wol, Undersecretary of Petroleum, as the man allocating cargoes and controlling payments.
A former Nilepet consultant told Afrik.com: “The shipments are resold to intermediaries who cash in at Dubai, Nairobi, or Kampala. The Central Bank never sees the money.”
This dual network — Bol Mel’s political protection and Deng Lual Wol’s technical control — has turned the Ministry of Petroleum into what Afrik.com calls “a state within the state.”
Global Consequences and Condemnations
International patience is wearing thin. Afrik.com recalls that in 2024, the World Bank arbitration court ordered South Sudan to repay $1 billion to Qatar National Bank, and in 2025 the High Court of London added $657 million more to Afrexim Bank — debts now draining the treasury.
Meanwhile, South Sudan’s crude sells at a record discount of $10.70 per barrel, costing nearly $400 million in lost revenue since 2022.
“The country is destroying its credit on world markets,” an analyst warned Afrik.com.
At home, the result is devastating: civil servants unpaid, the pound down 181 percent, hospitals without medicine. The UN data cited by Afrik.com paint a desperate picture — 10 percent of children die before age five, three-quarters from preventable causes.
The Dubai Connection and the Irony of the Embargo
While the UAE embargo suffocates exports, Afrik.com notes that Bol Mel has multiplied official visits to Abu Dhabi, signing “economic agreements” alongside President Salva Kiir.
At the same time, Deng Lual Wol has reportedly traveled to Dubai twenty times this year, spending weeks in luxury hotels such as the Burj Al Arab and Atlantis The Palm, coordinating oil sales with BGN and EuroAmerica executives far from the eyes of Juba.
As Afrik.com puts it: “The same Emirati system that blocks South Sudanese exports also hosts the banks and hotels used to recycle the stolen money.”
A Nation on the Edge
Economists quoted by Afrik.com warn that without drastic change, South Sudan could be insolvent by 2026. “The state has outsourced its own corruption,” one Juba academic said.
For now, while Vice President Bol Mel negotiates in Abu Dhabi and Eng. Deng Lual Wol oversees deals from Dubai, millions of South Sudanese wait for their oil wealth to feed families — not foreign accounts.
As Afrik.com concludes in its scathing investigation: “The people starve while the elite dine abroad. The oil that built a nation now fuels its destruction.”