Page 8 - AfrOil Week 19 2021

AfrOil PIPELINES & TRANSPORT AfrOil

Bashe responded by saying that Tanzanian be appropriate, and if the original objective of
authorities would only change their plans in the allocating the area for oil and gas investment
event that oil and gas operators were unable to [cannot] be achieved, then the government
move forward with development work offshore could review its position ... The idea of redis-
East Africa. tributing the area for other uses is until now not
“Allocating the area for other uses would not justifiable and has no place,” he said. ™

Kenya aims to wrap up land acquisition

for Lokichar-Lamu pipeline by year-end

KENYA KENYA’S government is gearing up to begin When finished, the link will be part of the
acquiring land for the Lokichar-Lamu Crude Lamu Port-South Sudan Ethiopia Transport
Oil Pipeline (LLCOP) project and hopes to com- Corridor (LAPSSET) system.
plete the process by the end of this year. LAPSSET is a planned transport and tele-
According to John Munyes, the Cabinet Sec- communications corridor that also includes
retary of the Ministry for Petroleum and Min- roads, a railway line, a petroleum product pipe-
ing, Nairobi already has a plan and a schedule line, a fibre-optic cable offering internet service
for the acquisition of a 500-metre-wide corridor and other facilities.
of land along the planned route of the pipeline. Maina Kiondo, the director-general of the
“The pipeline will pass through Lamu, Meru, project, said last month that plans for LLCOP
Isiolo, Garissa, Samburu and Turkana counties. were already “advanced.” He was quoted as say-
We hope to finalise this process by the end of the ing by The EastAfrican newspaper as saying
year,” he was quoted by Agence Ecofin as saying that LAPSSET’s team had already completed a
on May 10. geotechnical study of the right-of-way along the
Land acquisition is one of the necessary proposed pipeline route. Additionally, he said,
prerequisites to building the pipeline, Munyes the project has “undergone a major transfor-
added. The Kenyan authorities will also have to mation from completion of initial preliminary
allocate budget funds for the project and seek studies to completion of front-end engineering
outside investment before giving the green light and design [FEED].”
for construction work to begin, he commented. Kiondo also noted that work on new port
LLCOP is slated to follow an 892-km route facilities at Lamu was already more than 85%
from Blocks 10BB and 13T, two oil-bearing complete. The port is due to launch its first berth
licence areas in the South Lokichar basin, to the and container facility in about three months
Indian Ocean port of Lamu. The cost of building and will begin regular commercial operations
the conduit, which will have an initial through- in October of this year, after the roads linking
put capacity of 60,000-80,000 barrels per day it to major regional hubs are finished, he said,
(bpd), is expected to reach $1.5bn. according to The EastAfrican. ™

Lokichar-Lamu pipeline route map (Image: LAPSSET)

P8 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 19 12•May•2021