The East African Community (EAC) is optimistic about the development reached by one of its partner states, Uganda, in exploring for petroleum in its reserves, saying the move would help in cutting down escalating fuel prices in the region.
“This development will be beneficial to all East Africans and that’s the importance of having a regional bloc,” said Dr Nyamajeje Weggoro, Director of Productive Sectors, at the EAC secretariat.
He was presenting a paper on energy, power and other related productive sectors at the training involving media practitioners from five EAC partner states.
According to the EAC senior official, Uganda is progressing well with its endeavours to tap the available petroleum oil and very soon it will start refueling the region with its own oil.
“This gives us too much hope that the price of fuel will likely to go down and make the region free from imported oil dependency,” he said, adding that so far refinery plants were under construction to make the idea viable.
Currently, EAC and its neighboring countries depend on fuel from the Middle East and other oil producing countries as a result the product was very expensive in the region due to transportion and related costs.
Weggoro explained that the regional body had also been putting key infrastructures on the ground, so that fuels reached the desired market destination within the region.
“We have already sourced funds for the feasibility study of Kigali-Bujumbura oil pipeline as well as additional funding from Kampala-Kigali.” The official also disclosed that feasibility study for the Dar es Salaam-Tanga-Mombasa natural gas pipeline project had been completed.
“Our idea is to see available energy and power sources are shared for the benefit of our people in the region,” Dr Weggoro explained.
Uganda is estimated to hold over two billion barrels in its available oil reserves.
For over three years, Uganda's oil exploration efforts have pointed to the development of a viable oil and gas sector in the Albertine basin, which is found in the western arm of the Great Rift Valley.
Canadian oil and gas explorer Heritage has put estimates of commercially available oil to more than a billion barrels of oil while Irish explorer Tullow Oil has achieved flow rates of more than 10,000 barrels of oil per day.
