Page 11 - AfrOil Week 42 2022

AfrOil POLICY AfrOil

The Palestinian Authority gave a concession to The trigger for the renewed interest in Gaza
British Gas (BG), which has since been acquired gas fields seems to be European interest in diver-
by Shell (UK), to drill for gas in offshore Gaza sifying its natural gas supplies away from Rus-
in 1999. The following year, BG announced the sian sources, which gave impetus to the signing
discovery of Gaza Marine, which holds nearly 1 of the trilateral memorandum of understanding
trillion cubic feet (28.32bn cubic metres) of gas. (MoU) between the EU, Israel and Egypt ear-
However, the company terminated the contract lier this year to jointly develop offshore eastern
in 2016 due to Israeli reservations. Mediterranean gas fields. Now that co-operation
Since then, Egypt has greatly developed its is being expanded to include a natural gas field
domestic gas infrastructure has expressed will- located offshore from Gaza, potentially opening
ingness to will co-ordinate with the Palestinians a lucrative funding source for the Hamas-con-
to develop the gas fields offshore Gaza. trolled Gaza Strip government. ™

Museveni defends oil development plans,

reiterates commitment to net zero by 2050

UGANDA UGANDA’S President Yoweri Museveni said on from these sites near Lake Albert will eventually
October 19 that his government was committed reach 260,000 barrels per day. A small portion
to reaching carbon neutrality by 2050 but did of these volumes – less than 50,000 bpd – will
not expect fossil fuel consumption to be elim- be sent to a refinery that has been slated for con-
inated completely within the next few decades. struction within the framework of the project.
In a speech at a climate summit sponsored by The plant will turn out petroleum products for
South Africa’s Standard Bank Group in Johan- the domestic and regional markets.
nesburg, Museveni declared that his country Meanwhile, the majority of future produc-
was on track to bring net carbon dioxide emis- tion, or 216,000 bpd, will be exported via the
sions down to zero by the middle of the century. East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP), a
“Uganda remains committed to achieving the 1,443-km pipeline from Hoima in western
goal of carbon neutrality,” he said. Uganda to Tanga, a port on Tanzania’s Indian
He also stated that Kampala intended to use Ocean coast. The conduit, which will be heated
the proceeds of the Lake Albert Development to compensate for the waxy nature of the crude,
Project (LADP), the $10bn campaign led by is expected to carry a price tag of about $4bn. ™
TotalEnergies (France) to develop oilfields on
the shores of Lake Albert, to cover the costs of
making the transition to a lower-carbon econ-
omy. Petrodollars will help fund the switch,
which will include the development of an elec-
tric vehicle (EV) industry in Uganda, he said.
TotalEnergies and its partner China National
Offshore Oil Corp. (CNOOC) are still slated to
begin production at the Tilenga and Kingfisher
oilfields in 2025 as scheduled, he added.
The president also defended his decision to
approve LADP despite opposition from envi-
ronmental and climate activists. Fossil fuels
are set to remain useful even after the switch
to renewable energy, Bloomber quoted him as
saying.
“Even when we stop using hydrocarbons for
driving cars, we shall use them for other pur-
poses which are not polluting,” he remarked.
“Even when we have electric cars or buses, we
shall need these products like plastics and so on.
So it is therefore nonsensical to say that we stop
developing our petroleum because there is a
plan to stop using petroleum for transport.”
LADP aims to monetise Uganda’s as-yet
untapped crude oil resources by developing
Kingfisher and Tilenga. It anticipates that yields Major components of Tilenga project (Image: PAU)

Week 42 20•October•2022 www. NEWSBASE .com P11