Uganda has announced additional oil discovery projects as it hopes to increase the East African country’s reserves.
At a press conference in the capital city of Kampala, energy minister Ruth Nankabirwa revealed the ministry is “conducting preliminary petroleum exploration studies in the Moroto-Kadam Basin to assess its oil and gas potential. Similar surveys have started in the Kyoga Basin”.
According to the government, early results suggest some potential for commercial oil and gas in the Moroto-Kadam Basin.
The new surveys follow the government’s annual budget increase for the oil and gas sector, announced in June. The allocation for the year through June 2025 is now Ush921bn ($246m), an increase from the 2023-2024 allocation of $120m.
The landlocked central African nation has an estimated 6.5 billion barrels of oil within its borders, of which 1.4 billion barrels are thought to be recoverable.
In 2006, commercial quantities of crude oil from two fields were discovered in the Albertine Graben basin in West Uganda, bordering the Democratic Republic of Congo. However, Reuters reported that production is not expected to start until next year, due to a lack of infrastructure and funding.
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By GlobalDataOut of five basins in Uganda where hydrocarbon potential is suspected, the only successful exploration so far has been in Albertine, said the energy ministry.
The Tilenga and Kingfisher fields in Albertine have so far drilled 72 out of 457 wells.
Nankabirwa confirmed that oil companies have submitted a plan for a liquefied petroleum gas facility, for which a government licence will be issued, although no timeframe has yet been provided.
Albertine is majority-owned by France’s TotalEnergies with a 56.7% stake, with the remaining share split between China’s CNOOC and Ugandan national oil company UNOC.
Throughout this year, Uganda has been ramping up its attempts to secure investment for its East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP), which has faced scepticism from Western banks but interest from Chinese financial institutions. The Ugandan EACOP is a major step in exporting oil from fields, including Albertine, and the government expects a decision from China in September.
Offshore Technology’s parent company GlobalData forecasts that should EACOP come online in 2025, peak production would be reached in 2028, eventually producing 230,000 barrels of crude oil per day.
