Museveni defiant; says oil production to start in next two years

President Museveni has maintained Uganda will start producing oil in two years to fund high profile projects including a road connecting Uganda to Ethiopia via Kenya.

This comes amid a number of uncertainties key among them suspension of activities on the Uganda–Tanzania Crude Oil Pipeline by Total SA.

Speaking during the signing of a pact that seeks to improve development in Turkana, West Pokot and Karamoja in Moroto District, President Museveni asked the UN to fund the road, failure of which he would mobilise resources to construct the road.  

“UN doesn’t have a lot of money but I would like them to use their advocacy to get us money to build a road connecting Uganda to Ethiopia,” he said, adding that the request for UN’s funding would only stand for two years after which Uganda would build the road.

“Once my oil comes out in two years, I will build the road myself,” he said without providing further details.

However, government had recently announced an extension, suggesting that commercial oil would at least start flowing in 2023.

The extension had been of an earlier 2021 deadline, which government had hoped to have stared commercial oil production.

The President’s announcement is also ahead of the 2023 deadline in which Uganda, Tanzania and venture partners (oil companies) had expected to have completed the heated pipeline for transportation of oil to the port of Tanga.

This also comes at a time when the construction of the 1,410 kilometres pipeline was recently thrown in disarray after Total E&P suspended all activities on the $3.5b project.   

The suspension came after Tullow, one of the project partners, had pulled out of negotiations with the Ugandan government to sell a part of its stake to Total E&P citing continued frustration.

The suspension has seen experts predict that Uganda would most likely miss the 2023 deadline that had been earmarked as the year for commencement of commercial oil production.

During a meeting with his Tanzanian counterpart John Pombe Magufuli in Dar el Salam about two weeks ago, President Museveni said the pipeline project would go ahead.

However, he did not indicate how the project would go on with an indefinite suspension of all activities from key partners.

It is unclear how President Museveni expects to start oil production within the next two years given that a number of deadlines have gone by without realising commercial oil production.