Despite extensive talks on possibly routing an oil pipeline through Kenya, Total Uganda has decided to run the pipeline through Tanzania.
“As a company, our position remains that we are going through Tanga. I understand there are issues being discussed but our position remains the same,” The East African reported Total E & P Uganda General Manager Adewale Fayemi saying while attending a two-day East Africa Oil and Gas conference in Tanzania.
Kenya tried last month to persuade Uganda to reconsider routing the pipeline through Kenya, as opposed to Tanzania, during a meeting between Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni in Nairobi.
According to a joint statement issued by Kenyan Cabinet Secretary for Energy and Petroleum Charles Keter, and Ugandan Minister for Energy and Mineral Development Irene Mulon, the two leaders heard technical presentations by Kenyan and Ugandan energy officials.
Officials from oil companies involved in the pipeline debate also attended the meeting.
The presentations involved options of constructing the pipeline from Hoima, on Lake Albert in Uganda, through the Kenyan ‘northern route’ via the oil fields of Lokichar.
The Kenyan ‘southern route’ would have gone through the town of Nakuru, with a loop to Lokichar.
“In the construction of the pipeline, Kenya favoured the ‘northern route’, through Lokichar, because, as part of the Lamu Port-South Sudan-Ethiopia Transport project, it would transform infrastructure and the way of life of the people in the towns and counties across its path,” Kenyan State House spokesperson Manoah Esipisu said.
The third option, involving a route from Hoima to Tanga in Tanzania, remained the favoured option due the lower costs involved and because of less security issues which are currently plaguing Kenya involving attacks by Al-Shebaab militants.