Page 9 - DMEA Week 15 2021
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DMEA COMMENTARY DMEA
while the pipeline is under construction. How- newspaper.
ever, EACOP’s backers say the project will Pouyanné also talked up the size of Total’s
involve enough information and technology commitment to East Africa, noting that the
transfer to ensure that local contractors are able total cost of exploring and developing the Lake
to expand their capacities and become more Albert fields and building the pipeline was set to
competitive. top $5bn.
“It’s a very large development, one of the larg-
Upstream start date est that will be developed on this continent,” he
Another positive consequence of the signing of said, according to a Bloomberg report.
the agreements should be progress towards start- It is worth noting that the volume of crude
ing production at the Ugandan oilfields that will flowing to market from Uganda will be relatively
fill the pipeline. small. Kingfisher and Tilenga will eventually
That is, now that plans for EACOP have taken yield up to 260,000 bpd of oil, less than 1% of
concrete form, Total and CNOOC will be able current global production, and most of these
to set a schedule for bringing the Kingfisher and volumes, or about 216,000 bpd, will be sent to
Tilenga sites on stream. market via the EACOP link. (The pipeline will
On April 11, Total’s CEO Patrick Pouyanné have to be heated so that the waxy Ugandan
seemed confident that the fields would be ready crude flows properly.)
to launch commercial production in less than Nevertheless, oil flows will be large enough
four years. “[This] is the beginning of a journey. to establish Uganda as a producer and exporter
Expect the first oil tanker to dock at Tanga port – and increase the volume of foreign investment
[to pick up Ugandan crude] in early 2025,” he flowing into both Tanzania and Uganda by as
was quoted as saying by The Citizen, a Tanzanian much as 60% in the process.
Week 15 15•April•2021 www. NEWSBASE .com P9
