Kampala — President Yoweri Museveni has finally accepted to have a portion of Uganda’s oil exported in crude form when commercial production is scheduled to start during 2017.
The Ugandan President has been adamant about first building a refinery to process all the oil. But the oil companies have insisted a pipeline to the coast is far more important in terms of recouping their development costs faster.
In his State of the Nation address last week, Museveni said “Our crude oil will be used in the refinery to produce final products, part of it will be exported as crude and part of it will be used for electricity generation. The gas will be used for electricity generation and for assisting in extracting the crude.”
The preparations for construction of a 20,000-barrels per day refinery are already underway in Kabaale area in Western Uganda.
Four companies bidding to win construction rights were shortlisted recently. They include the China Petroleum Pipeline Bureau (CPPB) from China, Marubeni Corporation from Japan, RT – Global Resources from Russia and SK Group from South Korea.
Since 2006, Uganda has discovered about 3.5 billion barrels of oil in 40% of the potential area. Exploration in the rest of the potential areas is continuing.
Museveni said, “Our negotiations with the oil companies had delayed because there were contentious clauses. Happily, we have agreed with the oil companies on the Memorandum of Understanding. We can, therefore, proceed to negotiate on the details.”
Museveni said if Uganda gets enough quantities of gas; it will be used in steel manufacturing, used in iron-ore deposits in the Kabale-Kanungu areas and in the Sukuru Hills near Tororo in Eastern Uganda.
He said apart from oil and gas, the government conducted exploration in different parts of the country where they discovered more than 200 million metric tonnes
of proven iron ore in Kabale and Kanungu areas, 230 million metric tonnes of proven phosphates Ore in Sigulu hills, Tororo and more than 300 million tonnes of limestone used to make cement in Karamoja areas in addition to the one in Hima.
“We have more than three billion tonnes of aluminium clays in Makuru areas of Bugweri, more than nine million tonnes of copper in Kilembe areas in Kasese and more than 5.5 million tonnes of Cobalt in Kisoro areas. These are all riches that we will start to extract,” Museveni told the nation.
Museveni said Uganda has discovered more than 800,000 tonnes of wolfram in some parts of Kabale, more than 1 million tonnes of Tin in Ruhaama Ntungamo areas, more than 8.2 million ounces of Gold in different parts of the country and more than 54.9 million tonnes of vermiculite which is mixed with sodium silicate and potassium to produce an ‘earth damp’ mixture.
Museveni said Uganda will train nuclear scientists after discovering huge deposits of Uranium in some parts of the country.
Uranium is the major component in the manufacturing of nuclear power and energy. It is also used as a target for X-ray production, as ammunition for some types of military weaponry, as a shield against radiation, as a counterweight for aircraft control surfaces and in the gyroscopes of inertial guidance systems.
