To date, twenty (20) discoveries of oil and/or gas have been made in the country. Most of the discoveries have good to excellent quality reservoir sands which is a good indication for the productivity of the discovered fields. Uganda’s oil inventory now stands at 3.5 billion barrels from 40% of the Albertine Graben area with great potential for more hydrocarbons and the discoveries in the same area are expected to increase. 77 oil wells have been drilled to-date with 70 encountering oil and gas which is a good drilling success rate.
Albertine Graben is subdivided into eleven Exploration Areas out of which, six are licensed. Five of the eleven exploration areas are licensed to three operators; Tullow, Total and CNOOC and one to Dominion
The plans of the licensed oil companies
The licensed oil companies have submitted Field Development Plans (FDPs) for some discoveries to Government for approval before production licence can be granted.
The expected oil production from the wells in the explored areas is estimated at 200,000 barrels per day. The three oil players are expected to build their own infrastructure that will route the crude oil to one central point where the refinery and other buyers will collect it from.
The players will be paid on basis of crude oil which will be taken out of the central collection centre by the buyers.
Government has not yet approved the budget from Tullow group for the development of the infrastructure.
Oil Consumption
Uganda’s consumption of processed crude oil is estimated to be 20,000 barrels per day and regional consumption including Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi is estimated at 60,000 barrels per day. There still a challenge of how handle the difference between production and expected demand.