Uganda reaches key milestone in oil manufacturing

Uganda is to fee the primary of its 4 deliberate oil drilling rigs and begin drilling the primary manufacturing properly, its petroleum company mentioned.

This a key milestone because the nation races to satisfy its goal of first oil output in 2025.

The East African nation found business reserves of petroleum almost twenty years in the past however manufacturing has been repeatedly delayed by an absence of infrastructure like a pipeline.

“Today we mark another milestone and move a step closer to first oil with the launch of the drilling of development and production wells for the Kingfisher oil fields,” government-run Petroleum Authority of Uganda (PAU) mentioned on Twitter.

PAU, which regulates the petroleum sector, mentioned President Yoweri Museveni was resulting from officiate “at the Spudding (drilling) campaign launch” at a web site in Kingfisher venture space, one of many nation’s two business oil improvement areas.

Kingfisher, positioned close to the southern flank of Lake Albert within the nation’s west, is operated by China’s CNOOC. Uganda’s second venture space, Tilenga, positioned north of Lake Albert astride River Nile, is operated by France’s TotalEnergies.

The two companies co-own all of Uganda’s current oilfields alongside the state-run Uganda National Oil Company (UNOC).

At peak, Uganda plans to provide about 230,000 barrels of crude oil per day.

The rig resulting from be launched on Tuesday, might be used to drill a complete of 31 wells in Kingfisher whereas three rigs to be deployed later in Tilenga venture space will drill a complete of 426 manufacturing wells, in keeping with the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development.

Uganda’s crude reserves are estimated at 6.5 billion barrels, of which 1.4 billion barrels are recoverable.

The nation will export its crude by an electrically heated, 1,443-km pipeline from the oilfields to neighbouring Tanzania’s Indian Ocean seaport of Tanga.