Page 6 - AfrOil Week 07 2020

AfrOil PIPELINES & TRANSPORT AfrOil
Uganda seeks Chinese credits to build new oil roads
UGANDA
Railway Seventh Group for the design and building of a 97-km road in western Uganda. This road would link the Hohwa-Nyairon- go-Kyarusesa-Butoole, Kabaale-Kiziranfumbi and Masindi-Biiso routes, it added.
Kampala has also put forward more ambi- tious plans for road construction in the areas near the Lake Albert oilfields. In May 2019, David Bahati, the minister of state for planning, asked Parliament to consider the government’s request to borrow the equivalent of $456.37mn from China Eximbank for the establishment of a 700-km network of roads to serve the areas where foreign investors are hoping to extract oil.
China’s government has been eager to nance such projects in recent years as part of its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). ™
Road construction in Uganda (Photo: Construction Review Online)
UGANDA’S government is reportedly prepar- ing to borrow more than €100mn from China for an infrastructure project designed to facil- itate the development of oil elds in the Lake Albert region.
Denis Katungi, the communications and media relations manager of Uganda Media Centre, said last week that the Cabinet had approved plans to seek Chinese funding for the project. Kampala is looking to borrow €108mn from the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) to cover the cost of building or improving roads along the Hohwa-Nyairon- go-Kyarusesa-Butoole, Kabaale-Kiziranfumbi and Masindi-Biiso routes in the western part of the country, he said.
Katungi did not say when the government hoped to nalise the deal with ICBC or reveal what terms the credit would carry. He did stress, though, that the infrastructure project would expand the network of roads needed to move workers, construction materials and other goods to the areas near the oil elds.
“Upgrading and constructing the national oil roads will facilitate the e cient development of the strategic national oil resources,” he was quoted as saying by the Monitor.
He did not say whether Uganda had yet cho- sen a contractor for the project.
e road construction initiative will com- plement another project that is being executed with help from China. Last March, the Monitor reported, Kampala signed a contract with China
INVESTMENT
Egypt eyes deal on $6.7bn petchem hub
EGYPT
STATE-OWNED Egyptian Petrochemicals (ECHEM) has signed a co-operation agree- ment with US engineering group Bechtel, which Cairo claims will pave the way for construction of a $6.7bn re ning and petrochemical complex.
Under the deal, ECHEM will begin prepar- ing a detailed feasibility study for the project with an international consultant, the Egyptian Petroleum Minister said on February 11. Bech- tel will meanwhile approach banks and other financial institutions to assess what funding options are available.
e proposed complex would be built in the Suez Canal Economic Zone (SDZone). Neither
Egyptian authorities, ECHEM nor Bechtel have commented on the speci cs of the project.
Egypt is looking to advance several major petrochemical investments, in order to curb its reliance on imports. Investors are attracted to the country because of expectations of fast-growing demand for petrochemical prod- ucts, given the steep rise in its population in recent years, which just surpassed 100mn.
Still, getting projects o the ground has been
a struggle. Privately owned Carbon Holdings,
for instance, is still negotiating nancing with investors for its $10-11bn Tahrir Petrochemicals Complex (TPC), a er years of limited progress 
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w w w. N E W S B A S E . c o m Week 07 19•February•2020