Page 4 - DMEA Week 38 2022

DMEA COMMENTARY DMEA

(Image: Petroleum Authority of Uganda)
Ugandan officials push back after

European Parliament’s EACOP vote

President Museveni, deputy speaker, other officials blast MEPs’ expressions of concern about pipeline

UGANDA’S President Yoweri Museveni has the pipeline idea; if they choose to listen to the
reiterated his support for the East Africa Crude European Parliament, we will find another part-
WHAT: Oil Pipeline (EACOP) and associated efforts to ner to work with.”
Uganda’s president has develop upstream assets near Lake Albert fol- He continued: “In any case, our oil will be
reiterated his support lowing the European Parliament’s passage of an extracted in 2025 as planned. So the people of
for the EACOP pipeline emergency resolution condemning the projects. Uganda need not worry.”
project. On September 16, Museveni declared in
a Twitter post that Uganda intended to con- Deputy speaker pushes back
WHY: tinue working with its partners, TotalEnergies Thomas Tayebwa, the deputy speaker of Ugan-
Museveni joins other (France) and China National Offshore Oil Corp. da’s Parliament, was equally critical of the EU’s
Ugandan officials in
criticising a European (CNOOC), to build the pipeline and develop its legislative body for its recent passage of the
Parliament resolution oilfields. He also stated that his government was emergency resolution, which called for putting
urging suspension of ready to seek another partner in the event that the projects on hold for a year to allow the study
LADP . TotalEnergies, the head of the EACOP consor- of alternative pipeline routes. Speaking later on
tium and the operator of Tilenga, the largest of September 16, he called the measure a bid to
WHAT NEXT: the two Lake Albert blocks, changed course. prevent Uganda from developing its own nat-
MEPs are likely to Work on EACOP “will continue as stip- ural resources.
support further PR cam- ulated in the contract we have with TotalEn- In taking this stance, he said, the MEPs are
paigns against the Lake ergies and CNOOC,” Museveni wrote on trying to prevent an African country from bet-
Albert projects. Twitter. “TotalEnergies has convinced me on tering its own social and economic position.

P4 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 38 22•September•2022