By Ndubuisi Micheal Obineme
Peninah Aheebwa, Director of Technical Support Services Petroleum Authority, Uganda, has said that the Albertine Graben is open for investment and there are currently three active exploration licenses given to Armour Energy and Oranto Petroleum.
She disclosed this during an extensive discussion at Majorwaves First Webinar Series titled: “Optimising Local Content through Regional Integration in a Post COVID-19 Africa”.
Peninah noted that Albertine Graben is Uganda’s most prospective basin and only 10% license has been issued while 90% is
unlicensed. She further explained that before the COVID-19 Pandemic, Uganda has been doing very well in terms of its economy growth which stood at 6.5% and the country’s GDP stood at $34 billion in 2019.
According to her, there are about 21 oil and gas discoveries in Uganda’s oil and gas industry with an unprecedented drilling tax rate of about 88% and a resource base of around 6 billion barrels of oil in place.
She continued: “Uganda have issued over 14 licenses to CINOOC, Total, Tullow among others. While the country is estimated to have about 1.4 billion barrels of recoverable resources.
“There is an ongoing licensing round in Uganda for up to 5 blocks that was launched in 2019 till September 30th, 2020.
“The blocks are attractive as we currently have up to 6 investors that have shown interest. But, we are encouraging investors out there to take advantage of these blocks.
“Some of our projects that have moved into the development phase are Tilenga, Kingfsher projects. They are ready for Final Investment Decision but what is holding it is a few commercial issues which we are discussing with the IOCs. As soon as we have finalised on that, the FIDs will be taken anytime soon.
“Again, we have another categories of projects which is the monetisation project. We will be using some of our crudeoil that will be refined incountry to add value, meet the energy needs of our country and region at large.
“The refining project was conceived in East Africa Community (EAC). It was a collective agreement within the region for the
establishment of a Mega Refinery and Uganda was identified as an area where the refinery should be built because of the proximity of discoveries we have in the region.
“There is work in progress in the refinery such as the FEED development. And, within the next 12 – 24 months we should be seeing the FIDS for the refinery as well.
“For the East African Crudeoil Pipeline, it is going to be the longest crudeoil pipeline in the world. It is unprecedented and the technical work is done and soon we will make FID.
“Generally, these are the projects we have Post COVID-19. And, the estimated CAPEX is $7 to $10 billion within 3 – 5 years.”