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Uganda recently issued a final tender to a company controlled by TotalEnergies to construct a US$3.5 billion oil pipeline through Tanzania, seemingly settling the long uncertainty regarding the controversial project. The heated pipeline will be used to evacuate crude mined out from Uganda to various destinations including western Europe
Uganda recently issued a final tender to a company controlled by TotalEnergies to construct a US$3.5 billion oil pipeline through Tanzania, seemingly settling the long uncertainty regarding the controversial project. The heated pipeline will be used to evacuate crude mined out from Uganda to various destinations including western Europe.
Recently, Uganda’s cabinet cleared the construction of the pipeline by the East African Crude Oil Pipeline Company Limited. TotalEnergies ‘s 62% is the largest in EACOP, while other investors include the state-run Uganda National Oil Company and Tanzania Petroleum Development Corporation, which have 15% stakes each. China’s CNOOC (0883. HK) holds 8% of the stake. As reported by www.trendsnafrica.com, TotalEnergies and the China National Offshore Oil Corporation signed a $10-billion agreement earlier this year. The project envisages developing Ugandan oilfields and for shipping the crude through a 1,445-kilometre pipeline to Tanzania’s Indian Ocean port of Tanga.
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The project has run into severe opposition from environmentalists and activists since it includes drilling in Murchison Falls, Uganda’s largest national park. They say the project threatens the region’s fragile ecosystem and the livelihoods of tens of thousands of people. The EU Parliament’s resolution warned the stakeholders to go slow on the project. But Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has vowed to proceed with the project and threatened TotalEnergies that he would look for another partner if the latter has gone slow in implementing the project. For him, the project is a major one that can catapult Uganda as a major player in hydrocarbons. The project to be implemented in Lake Albert, a 160-kilometer-long natural border between Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, will exploit huge reserves of oil and gas and ship the crude oil through what would become the world’s longest heated pipeline.
