Page 20 - DMEA Week 13 2021

DMEA PIPELINES DMEA

Uganda delays launch of EACOP,

Tilenga following Magufuli’s death

AFRICA UGANDA has pushed the start date for devel- host government agreement (HGA) in 2020.
opment of the Tilenga oilfield and construction EACOP is slated to follow a 1,445-km path
of the East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) from Hoima, a town in western Uganda, to
back to April. Tanga, a port on Tanzania’s coast. The pipeline
France’s Total and its partners had had been will be built by a consortium in which Total is
scheduled to begin work on both projects on serving as operator with a 37.5% stake. The
March 22. remaining equity in the group is divided between
However, the Petroleum Authority of Uganda China National Offshore Oil Corp. (CNOOC)
(PAU) explained in a statement last week that the with 37.5%; Uganda National Oil Co. (UNOC)
launch date had been postponed, owing to the with 15%, and Tanzania Petroleum Develop-
“very sad and untimely demise” of Tanzanian ment Corp. (TPDC) with 5%.
President John Magufuli. Both Total and CNOOC are involved in
The statement did not say exactly when the developing the Kingfisher and Tilenga oilfields,
parties might proceed. It hailed Magufuli’s sup- which will provide throughput for the pipeline.
port of the EACOP pipeline and noted that the These fields are due to begin production in 2025
late president had presided over the signing of an and will eventually yield at least 260,000 barrels
intergovernmental agreement (IGA) on the pro- per day of crude. EACOP will carry most of the
ject in 2017, as well as the signing of Tanzania’s oil, or around 216,000 bpd.™

TERMINALS & SHIPPING

Suez reopens as Ever Given is refloated

GLOBAL THE Chinese container ship Ever Given, which Impact
had blocked the Suez Canal for the past week, While the global supply chain fallout of the
has been refloated, allowing hundreds of waiting canal’s blockage has yet to be calculated, its effect
vessels to begin using the waterway. on oil prices was short-lived, with gains lost amid
Speaking to reporters on March 29, Suez uncertainty about the direction of this week’s
Canal Authority (SCA) chairman Osama Rabie OPEC+ meeting.
said that the backlog of 422 ships could be However, the logjam caused import-depend-
cleared within three and a half days. ent Syria to begin fuel rationing, as the country
The 400-metre-long Ever Given became had already been facing oil shortages. Prior to
lodged diagonally across the canal south of the the blockage, Syrian fuel prices had already risen
Great Bitter Lake because of high winds on by more than 50% in mid-March, with previous
March 23. shipments from Iran having been targeted by
Following the vessel’s refloating, Taiwan’s Israeli forces.
Evergreen Line, which is leasing the container- Syria’s Oil Ministry said that “the ministry is
ship, said it would be inspected for seaworthi- rationing the distribution of available oil prod-
ness, with decisions about its cargo to follow once ucts” with a tanker carrying fuel from Iran held
investigations into the incident were completed. up in the backlog. Oil Minister Bassam Tomeh
SCA’s Rabie noted: “The ship was ready for said that the cargo had been expected to arrive at
limited navigation after an initial inspection and the port of Baniyas on March 26.™
not a single container was damaged, but a second
investigation will be more precise and if it was
affected it will show.” He added: “Strong winds
and weather factors were not the main reasons
for the ship’s grounding; there may have been
technical or human errors.”
Netherlands-based Smit Salvage carried out
work to refloat and straighten Ever Given, with
CEO Peter Berdowski saying: “The time pres-
sure to complete this operation was evident and
unprecedented.” Image: AP

P20 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 13 01•April•2021