Uganda National Oil Co. has announced plans to produce and refine its own oil, said it will require as much as $70 million to construct a storage facility for refined products on the outskirts of Kampala.
The country will initially build storage with capacity for 60,000 cubic meters that it may upgrade to 138,000 cubic meters if there’s demand, Josephine Wapakabulo, chief executive officer of the Uganda National Oil Co., said Thursday in an emailed response to questions.
Uganda, which targets starting oil production from its western Lake Albert region in 2020, will seek a joint-venture partner for the project and will invite bids before the end of the year, she said. It already has storage for 30,000 million liters in the eastern town of Jinja.
The country signed in April a project framework agreement with the Albertine Graben Refinery Consortium, which includes a unit of General Electric Co., to develop a 60,000 barrels-per-day refinery. The facility in the oil-rich Hoima region will initially operate at half capacity before being upgraded.
Uganda will have a 40 percent stake in the refinery. Of that shareholding, some percentage may be offered to neighboring Kenya and Tanzania, which “previously expressed interest,” she said. The government has in the past said the two were keen to take up 2.5 percent and 8 percent stakes respectively.
France’s Total SA, China’s Cnooc Ltd. and London-based Tullow Oil Plc are jointly developing Uganda’s 6.5 billion barrels of discovered oil resource, of which as much as 1.7 billion barrels are recoverable.
Uganda will also export its crude through a 1,445-kilometer (898-mile) pipeline worth $3 billion to a Tanzanian port. The host agreements with the three companies could be signed within three months, said Robert Kasande, the permanent secretary in the Energy Ministry.
By Fred Ojambo
