The oil pipeline
Oil drilling is expected to commence in July next year in the Tilenga Project managed TotalEnergies, as companies insist that the first oil will be realized by 2025.
Hundreds of earth-moving machines and trucks are littered across a 768-acre piece of land in Buliisa, doing initial works in preparation for the building of the Central Processing Facility in the Tilenga Project Area.
This is a result of the completion of major agreements signed between the governments of Uganda and Tanzania, with the oil and gas lead investors in Aril this year.
Tilenga, the name of the project was coined out of the two words, Til and Engabi, both meaning the Kob in Alur and Runyoro/Rugungu respectively. The area in the northern part of the Lake Albert Basin in Buliisa and Nwoya is being developed by TotalEnergies, while the corresponding project is the Kingfisher Development Area in Kikuube District, under CNOOC.
In each development area, the companies operating there will build field processing facilities to collect crude and do initial processing like cleaning, before pumping it to the Central Processing Facility in Kabaale, Hoima.
From Kabaale, the crude will be processed to the international market level ready for transportation by pipeline to Tanga in Tanzania, or to the refinery to be built in Kabaale.
In Tilenga, the first contractor MotaEngil is leading the earthworks involving clearing for construction of different facilities that will finally support or feed the Processing Facility.
Tilenga will have a capacity to produce 204,000 barrels of crude oil per day from the six oil fields and 406 oil wells.
The TotalEnergies Construction Manager and Project Engineer, Tokwiny Charles Wabwire says the groundworks will be completed and handed over to McDermott by April, who should start drilling on the Oil and gas drilling in July. The area has 426 oil wells on 31 well pads, according to Wabwire.
Currently, according to Wabwire, works progress on the Tilenga project, and on completion mid next year, it will be handed over back to TotalEnergies who will then give it to McDermott for the next development phase.
TotalEnergies says 55 percent of the workforce are from the districts surrounding the area, especially Nwoya and Buliisa, while on the whole, 98 percent of the workforce are Ugandans.
The national content has been implemented at the contractor level. Wabwire says that at least five local companies have been awarded all the third-tier contracts of the works in accordance with the National Content policies.
The Petroleum Authority of Uganda says they try as much as possible to see that projects that can be done by local contractors are reserved for them.
PAU Manager Corporate Affairs Gloria Sebikari says they would have considered even more for local companies, but unfortunately, they do not yet have the required capacity. For this, she says it is civil works that have been reserved for local companies.
McDermott and Sinopec from Yangzhou, China won the contracts for the two areas, including Kingfisher. CNOOC is developing the Kingfisher project, a smaller oil development that also falls under the Lake Albert oil plan.
-URN
