FEASIBILITY STUDY FOR KENYA-UGANDA OIL PIPELINE TO TAKE 5 MONTHS

The Principal Secretary to the Energy and Petroleum Ministry Joseph Njoroge has said that feasibility study for the Kenya – Uganda oil pipeline will be expected by mid-April next year. The contract will be undertaken by Toyota Tsusho, a Japanese carmaker, which won the tender last month.

The pipeline will run from Lamu-Kenya to Hoima-Uganda, passing through the Lokichar basin. The company is also expected to come up with the design for the crude oil pipeline that will cover a distance of 1, 300 km. Also alongside the task will be the company’s supervision of construction of tank terminals in Hima, Lamu and Lokichar, as well as construction of a fiber optic cable from Lamu to Hoima through Lokichar.

Expected to take up US$4.4 billion, the project will help in harnessing crude oil from the Rift Valley basin – estimated at 1 billion barrels, and the Uganda crude reserves estimated to be 6.5 billion barrels. Also to be constructed is a 9-km pipeline running from Lamu tank terminal to a loading buoy anchored offshore.

Early last month, the government had awarded the tender for the project, and International Finance Corporation pledged to offer US$600m for the oil pipeline project.

Construction Review