Fourteen companies are jostling for the contract for an oil pipeline connecting East African neighbours Kenya and Uganda.

Capital Star Steel, a con- sortium of South Africa’s Capital Africa Steel and Seven Star Group, of China, is among the bidders for the $300-million project.

“The response for the project has been overwhelming . . . we have received bids from 14 companies, some of which are consortiums,” a senior Ministry of Energy official who is a member of the joint coor- dinating commission tells Engineering News.

He adds that the two gov- ernments will soon start evaluating the bids and expect to award the contract before the end of March.

Other companies that have submitted bids are a consortium of the National Oil Corporation of Kenya and India’s Oil Corporation; Punjloid Infrastructure and Inpex Construction, of Japan; Eiffage, of France, and Consolidated Contractors Group; Oil India and Kalpataru Power Transmission; and China Petroleum Pipeline Bureau.

Others are Turner & Townsend, Mota-Engil, Engenharia e Construção, of Portugal, Oasis Consortium Group, Denys, of Belgium, Alfaraa Jihind Consortium, Vitol, of France, National Gas Company of Trinidad and Tobago and Orascom Construction Industries, of Egypt.

Kenya and Uganda are look- ing for a contractor to under- take the project after terminating a contract awarded to Libyan company Tamoil back in 2006 after it became apparent it did not have the financial capacity to imple- ment the project.

The pipeline, which will stretch from Eldoret to Kampala through Malaba, will be built as a public–private partner- ship under a 20-year ‘build, own, operate and transfer’ arrangement.

The 352 km pipeline will interconnect with the existing 14-inch-diameter pipeline running from Nairobi to Eldoret and will include a spur line to Jinja, in Uganda, as well as a common user depot at the pipeline terminal in Kampala. It will be capable of trans- porting 220 000 ℓ/h.