OFFICIALS from Uganda and Tanzania yesterday convened for the first time to discuss work plan for the development of the proposed 8.7 trillion/-crude oil export pipeline.
The Ugandan Minister for Energy and
Minerals Development, Eng Irene Muloni, told reporters in Dar es Salaam
yesterday that the meeting held at Mwalimu Julius Nyerere Convention
Centre in Dar es Salaam, cleared a path for the commencement of the
crucial project that would benefit both countries.
“Today marks the beginning of the
commencement of the pipeline, we need support from everyone including
communities and the media, so that plans put in place can succeed,” she
noted Eng Muloni said in their first meeting focus was on defining the
project structure and its timeline in which they want it to be completed
before 2020.
The 1,400km pipeline will run from Hoima
District in the Albertine Graben through Masaka and Mutukula in Uganda
to Bukoba, Biharamulo, Shinyanga and finally to the Indian Ocean port of
Tanga in Tanzania.
The meeting was attended by officials
from companies with stake in the discovered oil in Uganda, including
Total E&P of France, Tullow Oil of United Kingdom as well as China
National Offshore Oil Corporation.
Meanwhile, the Minister for Energy and
Minerals, Prof Sospeter Muhongo, said that the meeting was in response
to a directive by heads of state of the two countries who wished to see
the project taking off immediately.
“We will be having another meeting on 26
May in Hoima, in which experts will present to us further steps to take
in accomplishing this work,” said Prof Muhongo. According to Eng
Muloni, the oil pipeline construction work will also involve building an
oil refinery plant which will cost about 4.7bn/-.
The government of Tanzania will be
involved in its construction through the Public Private Partnership
(PPP). Prof Muhongo said 40 per cent of the shares in the oil refinery
construction have been given to East African Countries (EAC) which means
each country will have eight per cent of shares. Expounding further, he
said the shares will cost Tanzania 150.4bn/-.
Mechanism on proper way to buy them was
being put in place and that the private sector will be involved in the
process, he added. Last Saturday, Uganda chose the Tanzanian route to
export its crude oil amid competition from Kenya, which also wanted to
clinch the deal to transport oil to yet to be constructed Lamu Port in
North-Eastern Kenya.
President Yoweri Museveni made the
decision to construct the pipeline through Tanzania during the 13th
Northern Corridor Integration Projects (NCIP) Summit in Kampala, which
was also attended by President Paul Kagame and Uhuru Kenyatta of Rwanda
and Kenya, respectively.
The envisaged pipeline through Tanzania
will be of benefit not only to Uganda and Tanzania but other countries
in the region such as Kenya, South Sudan, Rwanda, Burundi and the
Democratic Republic of Congo(DRC
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