“The east African crude oil pipeline is ongoing,” Uganda’s energy minister Ruth Nankabirwa told the Financial Times at the COP29 climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan. “We have invested a lot of money in exploring exploration [and] in critical infrastructure. We are now drilling.”
Uganda is set to become an energy producer by 2027, allowing the landlocked nation to export oil from two oilfields via a $4bn, 1,443km-long pipeline that would run through Tanzania to the port of Tanga. The developments will transform east Africa’s energy market but have been criticised for displacing communities and damaging the environment.
TotalEnergies alongside China’s Cnooc is leading the project alongside the Ugandan and Tanzanian national oil companies to develop the Kingfisher and Tilenga fields close to Lake Albert. Drilling has begun at both sites and the pipeline’s construction is already under way.
Once fully operational, Uganda expects to produce 230,000 barrels a day of oil — higher than Opec member Gabon’s output — with 60,000 b/d refined for domestic use. The remaining 170,000 b/d will be exported through the pipeline, which will be electrically heated to help pump Uganda’s thick and viscous crude grades.
The pipeline will cross nature reserves along the basin of Lake Victoria, Africa’s largest, while displacing households and wildlife across Uganda and Tanzania, say activists who are sceptical the projects will benefit local communities.
“Ugandan authorities have intensified their repression of activists protesting the oil projects in the country’s Lake Albert region,” said the International Federation for Human Rights, which in September documented at least 81 arrests and detentions since May.