South Sudan

South Sudan enters 2026 emerging from economic collapse. The year-long shutdown of its main oil export pipeline through war-torn Sudan drove an estimated 30% GDP contraction in FY2024/25, hyperinflation that reached roughly 91% on the year, and a poverty rate near 92%, according to the World Bank. With oil supplying more than 90% of government revenue, the export disruption cost an estimated $7 million per day and left the state in salary arrears and the South Sudanese pound deeply depreciated.

The investment thesis is a high-beta oil-recovery play. The pipeline's force majeure was lifted in January 2025 and, by November 2025, officials declared crude exports 'back to normal,' with output climbing toward 150,000 barrels per day from a December 2024 trough near 58,000. The AfDB projects a sharp rebound — about 4.0% growth in 2025 and 12.1% in 2026 — as volumes normalise, the currency stabilises and revenue is restored. Real diversification optionality exists in vast underused arable land, largely unexplored mining, and a proposed alternative export route to Kenya.

The defining risks are existential. Oil exports physically depend on infrastructure inside Sudan's active war zone, where 2025 drone strikes on processing facilities caused intermittent halts. Domestically, the 2018 peace deal is unravelling: First Vice-President Riek Machar was placed under house arrest in March 2025 and put on a treason trial by September 2025, his SPLM-IO declared the agreement effectively void, and the UN has warned of a slide back to civil war amid escalating fighting in Jonglei and Upper Nile.