Uganda launches first oil drilling programme, targets 2025 output

Uganda found industrial oil reserves practically 20 years in the past however manufacturing has been delayed by lack of infrastructure.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, centre, waves on the crowd as he arrives to formally launch the drilling of growth and manufacturing wells on the Kingfisher growth space in Kikuube district, western Uganda, on January 24, 2023 [Stuart Tibaweswa/AFP]

Uganda on Tuesday launched its first oil drilling programme, its petroleum company mentioned, a key milestone because the nation races to fulfill its goal of first oil output in 2025.

The Kingfisher discipline is a part of a $10bn scheme to develop Uganda’s oil reserves below Lake Albert within the west of the nation and construct an enormous pipeline to ship the crude to worldwide markets through an Indian Ocean port in Tanzania.

“The president [Yoweri Museveni] has formally commissioned the beginning of drilling marketing campaign on the Kingfisher oilfield,” the Petroleum Authority of Uganda (PAU) mentioned on Twitter, describing the event as a “milestone”.

The East African nation found industrial reserves of petroleum practically 20 years in the past in one of many world’s most biodiverse areas however manufacturing has been repeatedly delayed by a scarcity of infrastructure like a pipeline.

The Kingfisher discipline, operated by the state-owned China Nationwide Offshore Oil Company (CNOOC), is predicted to provide 40,000 barrels of oil per day at its peak, PAU mentioned.

“We're excited as a rustic and Africa,” vitality minister Ruth Nankabirwa informed the AFP information company.

PAU, which regulates the petroleum sector, mentioned President Yoweri Museveni launched the programme at a website within the Kingfisher undertaking space, one of many nation’s two industrial oil growth areas.

Uganda’s second undertaking space, Tilenga, positioned north of Lake Albert astride River Nile, is operated by France’s TotalEnergies.

CNOOC and TotalEnergies co-own all of Uganda’s present oilfields alongside the state-run Uganda Nationwide Oil Firm (UNOC).

At peak, Uganda plans to provide about 230,000 barrels of crude oil per day. The nation’s crude reserves are estimated at 6.5 billion barrels, of which 1.4 billion barrels are recoverable.

Nevertheless, the plans to faucet the oil at Lake Albert, a 160-kilometre (100-mile) lengthy physique of water separating Uganda from the Democratic Republic of Congo, have run into robust opposition from rights activists and environmental teams.

They've mentioned it threatened the area’s fragile ecosystem and the livelihoods of tens of hundreds of individuals.

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