Increasingly, the military conflicts between rebels, militias and government troops have shifted to the oilregions. The victims of these conflicts are primarily village residents who have nothing to do with the fighting. Their huts and fields are razed to the ground, and farmers are killed arbitrarily, kidnapped or expelled from the villages. The profits from the export of oil are estimated at approximately 400 million US dollars per year. Such profits are more than sufficient to cover the costs of the war in Southern Sudan.
European firms are also members of the international consortium of petroleum companies.
As an automobile driver in Germany you may have already filled up your gas tank with gas that was imported from the oil fields of Southern Sudan, or may end up doing so in the near future. The path that oil takes from the oil fields to the customers is hard to follow. The Dutch firm Trafigura Beheer B.V. for example, signed a contract with the NIF-Government that gave Trafigura the right to market 70 percent of the crude oil extracted from Sudanese oil fields in the first six months. Trafigura, a middleman of sorts, sells crude oil to firms which process crude oil and often mix together crude oil from a variety of sources. All of this takes place before the end product, gasoline, reaches the consumer.