UGANDA has announced plans to construct its oil refinery in the western part of the county. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni revealed the plans during a meeting with the delegation of Albertine Graben Refinery Consortium (AGRC) and said that a joint venture of the Uganda National Oil Company, four Italian and Mauritian companies, and the government is working on the start of oil production, and will use the oil revenue to build national capacity.
‘The upstream is heading in the right direction and also the final investment call. We have a tendency to square measure operating to confirm that the refining industry starts production. Land cannot be a haul. The building of a works could be a minimum. The target is to interact [with] the oil corporations for the pipeline,’ said the President.
Oil refinery
The government is additionally engaging with oil companies over the planned construction of the East African Crude Oil Pipeline between the oil wells in Albertine Graben, western Uganda, and the Tanzania seaport of Tanga, Museveni said.
Uganda expects to start commercial production of oil by 2022. The country has more than 6.5 billion barrels of oil reserves, the figures of Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development show. Three international companies, namely China National Offshore Oil Corporation, Total, and Tullow have an equal stake in Uganda’s so far discovered oil wells in Albertine Graben.
The Albertine Graben Refinery Consortium CEO, Rajakumari Jandhyala, who briefed the President on the progress recorded in the oil project so far, said her delegation was keen to operationalise the oil industry in the country.
