Qualla: Block 5A, South Sudan

Block 5A, South Sudan: Introduction

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. Out of 240,000 people, 12,000 died and 160,000 were driven from their homes. Those are the numbers that international investigators settled on for what happened in Block 5A during the war that preceded South Sudan's birth. The block is an oil concession - a rectangle drawn on a map of the Muglad Basin, covering the central part of Unity State west of the White Nile and extending into Warrap and Jonglei. Before the oil companies arrived, Block 5A was a floodplain fed by rivers from the Congo, Uganda, Kenya, and Ethiopia, home to Nuer pastoralists of the Bul, Leek, Jagei, Western Jikany, and Dok sections, and to the Thiang Nuer on the southern part of Zeraf Island. Then a pipeline was drawn across it.

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Block 5A, South Sudan: Before the Pipeline

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. The people who lived here did so by rhythm more than by calendar. In the dry season, the land parches and pastoralists move their herds in search of grazing, keeping close to rivers and permanent wetlands. In the wet season, the low country floods and families move to higher grou...

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Block 5A, South Sudan: The Road from Bentiu

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. In February 1997, the Sudanese government granted the Block 5A concession to a consortium: Lundin Oil of Sweden, OMV of Austria, Petronas of Malaysia, and Sudapet of Sudan. In 1998, the consortium established a drilling site at Ryer in Jagei Nuer territory, built an unpaved road ...

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Block 5A, South Sudan: What Satellite Photos Showed

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. The scale of what happened was such that you could see it from space. A Landsat study comparing 1999 to 2004 found that farming activity had collapsed in 10-kilometer bands along the new oil roads. The fields around Nhialdiu - where a series of village attacks had been reported f...

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Block 5A, South Sudan: The Trial in Stockholm

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. There was an outcry in Sweden. Lundin sold its stake to Petronas in 2003. Talisman Energy, the Canadian company working adjacent blocks, sold its interests in Sudan to India's ONGC Videsh in October 2002, the Talisman president telling shareholders they were 'tired of continually...

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Block 5A, South Sudan: The Marshes Remember

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. Production started at Thar Jath in 2006, at an initial rate of 40,000 barrels per day. By 2008, children in Koch were reportedly dying from drinking contaminated water; local officials counted more than 1,000 suffering from unknown illnesses. In 2009, the German NGO Sign of Hope ...

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