Uganda’s first oil rig, which is set to start the country’s oil production phase, has arrived at Mombasa Port in Kenya.
According to China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC), one of the companies in oil exploration in Uganda, the rig arrived in the early hours of today (Thursday), September 15, 2022, after it left Yantai Port, China on July 29, 2022.
In a tweet, CNOOC said the rig marks “steps to first oil.”
“We are committed to delivering first oil to Uganda and there’s no turning back,” the oil firm said in a tweet.
The rig is expected to be assembled in Uganda, tested and then readied for the start of oil production.
The development phase – construction of the required infrastructure to pump the nearly 1.4 billion barrels of Uganda’s recoverable oil reserves is in overdrive across the Tilenga and Kingfisher development projects respectively, which straddle the districts of Nwoya, Buliisa, Hoima and Kikuube.
The race against time is on to start commercial oil production in the last quarter of 2025.
Several pads have been built in the Albertine Grabben including the Kingfisher Oil Development Area in the Kikuube district. The rig will be moved from one well pad to another, according to officials.
A well pad is a site of facilities and other infrastructure for oil and gas drilling. One or two or more oil wells can be plugged onto a single well pad.
The JR 5, part of Exploration Area-1, east of Albert Nile, is one the 10 planned well pads inside the Murchison Falls National park.
To get here, a narrow dirt path veers at Pakuba junction, off the main Tangi-Packwach road, into the wilderness to the well pad working, cut off the greenery by an encircled camp site. Large mounds of loam soil are scattered all over the place, both inside and outside the camp.
The JR 5 well pad on which sixteen production and injection wells will be looped using a network of conductor pipes drilled together into the ground, alongside other oil fields, Ngiri, Gunya, Kigogole, Nsoga, and Kasamene, south of Lake Albert, form the Tilenga development project operated by TotalEnergies EP.
The project will produce about 230,000-barrels of oil per day to be fed into the proposed East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP), and the not-about-to materialise refinery project.
Meanwhile, the European Parliament has criticised a proposed East African pipeline, calling for TotalEnergies to consider an alternative route.
The resolution expressed “grave concern” around alleged human rights violations in Uganda and Tanzania, linked to the Lake Albert project.
The plan covers upstream investments at Tilenga and Kingfisher in Buliisa and Nwoya and Kikuube districts respectively, with the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) running from Hoima to the Tanzanian port of Tanga.
The text said that this had led to the “wrongful imprisonment of human rights defenders, the arbitrary suspension of NGOs, arbitrary prison sentences and the eviction of hundreds of people from their land without fair and adequate compensation”.
Uganda and Tanzania should launch efforts to ensure respect and compliance for human rights.
In particular, it called for the Ugandan government to reauthorise 54 NGOs that had been “arbitrarily closed or suspended”.
It also said Ugandan authorities should provide free and unhindered access to the oil zone for independent observers, from local groups to international observers.
A European Union delegation was barred from entering the oil zone in November 2021.
Construction of EACOP may lead to the displacement of 100,000 people, it said, “without proper guarantees of adequate compensation”.
Payments to farmers are too low for them to buy comparable land to continue, it said.
The EU should “exert maximum pressure” on the Ugandan and Tanzanian authorities, and the project’s backers, “to protect the environment and to put an end to the extractive activities in protected and sensitive ecosystems”.
Looking at alternatives
As such, they should resolve the various disputes around the project and consider the risks.
Total should “take one year before launching the project to study the feasibility of an alternative route to better safeguard protected and sensitive ecosystems and the water resources of Uganda and Tanzania”.
In addition to concerns over the route, the resolution expressed concerns about potential tsunami risks at Tanga.
The French company should also “explore alternative projects based on renewable energies for better economic development”.
The Tilenga project will produce 190,000 bpd of crude. Work will involve 426 wells, of which 200 will be water injectors and 196 oil producers. The Lake Albert plan will emit a projected 34 million tonnes per year of CO2.
Ms Amis de la Terre campaign manager Juliet Renaud welcomed the European Parliament’s resolution.
“It sends a strong political signal against Total’s Tilenga and EACOP projects, whose human, environmental and climate costs are undeniable and quite simply unacceptable,” she said. “This resolution echoes the growing mobilization of civil society, in East Africa, in France and around the world.”
Ms Amis de la Terre, with other NGOs, is suing Total in a French court over alleged duty of vigilance failures. A Paris court will hear the case on October 12.
In defence
Total has rejected complaints about Lake Albert and its environmental impact. The project is essential, it has said, because of the world’s ongoing need for hydrocarbons.
Total’s partner on the project, CNOOC Uganda, has also defended the project. The first rig for the work arrived at Mombasa port on Thursday.
“We are committed to delivering first oil to Uganda and there’s no turning back,” the Chinese company said.
In retaliation, the Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Mr Thomas Tayebwa, has lambasted the European Union Parliament for poking its nose into the development of the oil and gas sector in Uganda and Tanzania, following passing of a motion asking the two countries to halt the construction of oil pipeline.
Mr Tayebwa, who did not have kind words for the EU Parliament as he opened Thursday afternoon’s plenary sitting, described as “economic racism” the move to block the construction of the EACOP.
He condemned the resolution saying the idea behind it is an act of neo-colonialism by the Europeans thinking that they can control the economic affairs of independent African countries.
“The resolution is based on misinformation and deliberate misrepresentation of key facts on environment and human rights protection. It represents the highest level of neo-colonialism and imperialism against the sovereignty of Uganda and Tanzania” Mr Tayebwa charged.
Adding: “Like many African countries, Uganda is a developing country, and a sovereign state that has its unique development needs and priorities. I, therefore, call upon the European Union Parliament to withdraw the motion for a resolution against a UN Charter that provides for Uganda’s right to self-determination and sovereignty over its natural resources”.
