After nearly two decades of delay, Uganda has now set the second half of next year as the target for starting production from oilfields in its Albertine Rift basin in the west of the country.
The 1 443-kilometre East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) must be completed before production at the $15 billion oil project, owned by France’s TotalEnergies and China’s China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC), can begin.
EACOP will connect the Ugandan oilfields to Tanzania’s Indian Ocean port of Tanga and has been described as the world’s longest electrically heated crude pipeline.
Ernest Rubondo, Chief Executive of the Uganda Petroleum Authority, which oversees the country’s hydrocarbons sector, said in a statement that all the pipes for the project had been delivered to stations along the EACOP route.
So far, at least $3.3 billion has been invested in the project, which is 62% owned by TotalEnergies. Other shareholders include state-owned petroleum firms in Uganda and Tanzania, as well as CNOOC.
More than $4 billion is being invested in Uganda’s petroleum sector, including activities in the Kingfisher and Tilenga discoveries between 2025 and 2027, in preparation for production, Rubondo said.
Drilling and associated development work at the Tilenga and Kingfisher projects ahead of the start of crude production is 60% and 74% complete, respectively, he added.
–Reuters–
