Uncertainties persist over African pipeline route

A pipeline to ship oil from Kenya and Uganda to Africa’s east coast has become essential, but agreements on the route are far from settled

A number of options are on the table for a pipeline to make east Africa’s oil better felt on international markets. Uganda President, Yoweri Museveni, signed a deal in August 2015 to create the route through Kenya. But, two months later, Uganda's energy ministry announced a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Tanzania and France’s Total to study the viability of an alternative route to the Tanga port, in Tanzania, bypassing Kenya altogether. In April 2015, Japanese company Toyota Tsusho presented a study to the Ugandan government showing that a pipeline route running from Hoima-Lamu was more feasible than the first alternative, the Hoima-Nairobi-Mombasa route. A number of oil companies ar