Uganda, Tanzania and oil firms, Total and CNOOC, signed agreements that will kickstart the construction of a $3.5 billion crude pipeline to help ship crude from fields in western Uganda to international markets.
France’s Total and China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) own Uganda’s oilfields after Britain’s Tullow exited the country last year.
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and Tanzania’s new leader Samia Suluhu Hassan, on her first official visit, attended the signing of the three accords including a host government agreement for the pipeline, a tariff and transportation agreement and a shareholding agreement.
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 total reserves to be at six billion barrels.
The landlocked East African nation needs a pipeline to transport the crude to international markets.