Uganda must solve three-piece oil puzzle in 2025

Energy minister says country is delaying first oil production until pipeline and refinery are ready

Uganda will postpone first oil production from the Lake Albert project due to financing difficulties facing a planned refinery and a crude export pipeline to Tanzania, Minister of Energy and Mineral Development Ruth Nankabirwa Ssentamu said in an exclusive interview with Petroleum Economist. Uganda, which has been struggling for two decades to pump oil, made the discovery in the western Lake Albert Basin in 2006 and has sought the help of IOCs and investors to finance the production of crude from two projects, in which TotalEnergies and China’s state-controlled CNOOC have majority stakes. To export the crude from the land-locked country, Uganda wants to build a 1,443km pipeline—known as the