Uganda, Tanzania, oil firms sign accords for building pipeline

Uganda, Tanzania and oil firms Total and CNOOC have today 11^th April 2021 signed agreements that will kick start the construction of a $3.5 billion crude pipeline to help ship crude from fields in western Uganda to international markets.

The signatories have now agreed to “to start investment in the construction of infrastructure that will produce and transport the crude oil”, said Robert Kasande, permanent secretary at Uganda’s ministry of energy.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and Tanzania’s new leader Samia Suluhu Hassan attended the signing ceremony.

Speaking at the event, President Museveni thanked the people of Tanzania for agreeing to host the pipeline. He thanked President Samia Suluhu Hassan for accepting her invitation to Uganda and enhancing the corporation between the two countries.

President Samia Suluhu Hassan thanked President Museveni for the arm welcome he has given her being her first trip outside Tanzania since she assumed office in March 2021.  She assured Ugandans of the continued Bi-lateral relation between the two countries.

Uganda discovered crude reserves in the Albertine rift basin in the west of the country near the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2006. Government geologists estimated overall reserves at 6 billion barrels.

The planned East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP), with a length of 1,445 kilometres (898 miles), will run from the oilfields to Tanzania’s Indian Ocean seaport of Tanga.

Uganda’s crude is highly viscous, which means it needs to be heated to be kept liquid enough to flow.

Total said EACOP could potentially be the longest electrically heated crude oil pipeline in the world.