Economics
East Africa's Oil Ambitions Tested by Pipeline Machinations
- Uganda and Kenya building separate links to export crude
- Total offers to help fund pipeline from Lake Albert field
This article is for subscribers only.
A decade after its first big oil find, East Africa’s emergence as a crude exporter has been hindered by security and cost concerns that left the region building two pipelines instead of one.
Uganda and Kenya are developing two new basins and originally agreed to build one line to connect the landlocked discoveries to the coast. That changed last year, when Uganda chose a more southerly 1,400-kilometer (870-mile) route through Tanzania, citing lower transit prices. Kenya will go it alone with an 865-kilometer line to a port on the Indian Ocean.